by CeCe Day Hill

Created on: November 05, 2008

JDC America's Heartland: "Freedom: a Gift of Choice Paid in Full"

Because of someone's precious child, I can look out my office window into a world of opportunity and freedom, given by those I will never know, who paid the ultimate price so that I might have the "gift" of choice.

"Why won't Daddy come home," asks little Billy?

Similar words resounded for generations throughout the American Heartland as the Horsemen of the Apocalypse Death and War, ride shattering family lives. Drowning them in a cold dark ocean of wrenching emotional pain, broken hearts and a waterfall of tears visible in the silence and private depth of night.

In an instant, gone are once vivid moments of human love and interaction, now fading reflections of past memories - infectious smiles of joy - and echoes of laughter, and the hopes and dreams of a once vibrant voice.

A sprouting teenager Billy asks: "Why do we have to fight?"

His mother raises her eyebrows, thinks for a moment searching for the right words to answer her inquisitive yet impressionable son, who no longer just accepts, but seeks the insight of reasoning:

"Well Billy," she says, "All we have in this country has been purchased by guardians of freedom, who endured difficult trials, bitter oppression and religious opposition. Americans who decided to fight to make things better for themselves and future generations. They and your Dad have given us a special gift so we could be free to live the way we choose and too be able to speak our minds, even if it's wrong."

"But Mom," Billy interrupts, "People on TV are yelling at each other about not fighting and how bad people are who want to."

"Oh, Billy, no family wants their loved ones to fight, but there are times when you must stand up for a principle such as freedom or lose it."

I think of my own children and the same visions are all too clear and chilling, repeated throughout the heartland, as now I walk to take my place among family, friends and wide-eyed innocent children standing in silence, lining the streets three-deep in the Town of Proud Americans.

I sense the soft whispering winds and blinking sunlit shadows of a summer's day. There is an air of somber pause and community pride masking sallow faces, swollen eyes and an occasional tear wiped away by the cuff of a hand. A convoy of brightly polished motorcycles and a sea of American flags fly over the saddle bags of veterans from around the country, who have descended upon "Any town U.S.A." Side by side they roll down the old Route

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