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Let freedom ring!

November 12, 2012
*Portions of this verbal presentation contains material and subject matter comes with thanks to the Patriotic students of Oklahoma State University

Speech presented by Navy Master Chief (Retired) Ken Toline
Veterans Day
November 11, 2012

We the People.

We the people of the United States of America, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty, to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

For those of you who know, and for those who do not know, the words I just recited are the words to the preamble of one the greatest documents we the free American people have. The Constitution of the United States of America.

All military members past and present were required to swear an oath of allegiance to this country. That oath was a promise give in good faith when we entered the armed forces.

It went like this. “I solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic. That I will bear true faith and allegiance to same, and I will obey the orders of the president and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations, and the uniform code of military Justice. So help me God."

No one better understands the relationship between individual achievement, dignity, and strength better than our armed forces. Through every war our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines have held this nation's destiny in their hands. We did not let America down. We did not fail. We, past and present veterans, and active-duty cherish freedom enough that we are willing to die for it. And many did pay the ultimate sacrifice to ensure this great nation would never perish from this earth.

Now, it is our duty to those who served and are still serving, and to ourselves, to treasure freedom enough to live up to it. Let me add that we will preserve it, only as long as devotion to freedom is expressed in the hearts of our actions.

Our greatest treasure is freedom. The absence of restraints on our ability to think and act. The corollary of freedom is individual responsibility. We believe in the power of the individual.

When President Lincoln dedicated the Gettysburg National Cemetery, he declared, “It is for us the living to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus so nobly advanced. That unfinished cause for which our soldiers willingly go to battle, and for which so many have given their lives, is a free United States of America.”

It has been nearly 150 years, and the work that Pres. Lincoln spoke of is not finished. In fact, that work shall never be finished. We must not be complacent but continue to fight and protect our freedom, our liberty.

As I'm sure many of you know, there have been attempts to subvert our Constitution, and undermine our liberty. Isn’t it amazing that men fight for freedom, then they begin to accumulate laws to take it away from themselves. It is easy to take freedom for granted, when you never had it taken away from you. We must not let this happen to us a free people of America.

It has been said many times by many of our voices that we are not being heard by our elected representatives. There are deaf ears at our government level.

President Woodrow Wilson stated, “a leader's ear must ring with the voice of the people.”

If so,Then, our time has come. Let our voices be heard. One country, One voice: The American voice.

We have had our Constitution violated, our laws have been confounded. Private industry has been seized. Our jobs have been taken away. Our economy has almost been destroyed. Even free speech has been compromised and at times curtailed totally. Our national security has been weakened, as well as our sovereignty has been endangered. Our Second Amendment Right to bear arms has been threatened.

“The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.”

Those words were spoken by Thomas Jefferson. Our military has been demeaned, demoralized, and placed at a previously unheard level of total disrespect.They are being used as expendable tools for the gain of a few and for the manipulation of foreign policy. The freedoms and liberties that they shed their blood for is being denied to them, and to the citizens of this country that they proudly serve.


Those who deny freedom to others do not deserve it for themselves.

By the compromise of our nation's legal and economic institution, our legacy to our children is that they will never achieve the same quality of life that we enjoy today.

This is not acceptable. Not in the United States of America. We did not become a strong nation through hope, but rather through self-reliance.

Our great nation is a republic, and we will not accept tyranny foreign or domestic.

Let us here today, vow not to allow the dismantling of this the greatest nation on earth.

Today we honor veterans, who stood tall for the flag of the United States and vowed to defend and protect the Constitution of the United States of America. Those who served and are still serving, and the citizens of this great country, who hold the American way of life dear, are considered true patriots. Jefferson said “the patriots blood is the seed of freedoms tree.”

President Dwight Eisenhower stated “freedom has its life in the hearts, the actions, the spirit of men, so it must be daily earned and refreshed, else like a flower cut from its life giving roots, it will wither and die.”

We the people, who cherish our freedom, our liberty must not, cannot let it die.

President GW Bush so aptly stated “History moves towards freedom, because the desire for freedom is strongly written in every human heart.”

WE The People, have it written in our hearts!

We, the people, will defend our liberty, our freedom, and we will protect our beloved country and American exceptionalism will prevail.

As one of our forefathers, Patrick Henry stated, "is life so dear or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but for me, give me liberty or give me death.”

I stand before you today, a veteran of the armed forces, and pledge to you the American people that I, shall continue to protect and defend the flag of the United States of America, the Constitution of the United States, and the American way of life we so dearly cherish as long as there is breath in my body. Further, I will die standing rather than bow to another man.

We the people must take a stand, and demand that our country, our America, our cherished way of life be given back to us. Just as the bells rang out on this the 11th month, the 11th day and the 11th hour in honor of all veterans, past and present. Let them always ring loudly and resonate for the cause of a free people…..

For God and country, We the People cry out; "Let freedom ring!"
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