Calling down a ball of fire from heaven for God's glory or going up to heaven in a blaze of fire with God's glory are events that typify the lives of biblical prophets in our minds.
But the life of Uriah the prophet is a closer reality to what happens to any prophet, ancient or modern, who speaks truth to power.
Uriah prophesied in Judah during the eleven-year wicked reign of King Jehoiakim (609 to 598 BC).
Uriah's story is found in only five verses in the Bible:
"Now Uriah son of Shemaiah from Kiriath Jearim was another man who prophesied in the name of the Lord; he prophesied the same things against this city and this land as Jeremiah did. When King Jehoiakim and all his officers and officials heard his words, the king was determined to put him to death. But Uriah heard of it and fled in fear to Egypt. King Jehoiakim, however, sent Elnathan son of Acbor to Egypt, along with some other men. They brought Uriah out of Egypt and took him to King Jehoiakim, who had him struck down with a sword and his body thrown into the burial place of the common people." (Jeremiah 26:20-24)Notice five things that happened to Uriah when he spoke truth to the inhabitants of the city of Jerusalem, to the political and religious leaders of Judah, and to King Jehoiakim himself."
1. Because Uriah's words didn't flatter those in power and made it clear that the Lord and truth from Him were the highest authority in Judah, those in civil, religious, and political power turned on Uriah.
2. Uriah lost his home, his reputation, and all future speaking engagements before the king and his court.
3. Uriah fled to Egypt because he was in danger of losing his life.
4. King Jehoiakim sent troops to Egypt under the leadership of Elnathan to capture Uriah.
5. Brought back to Jerusalem, Uriah stood again before King Jehoiakim, and this time the king "struck down the prophet with the sword."
6. King Jehoiakim would not allow Uriah's body to be buried in his family's grave plot and ordered that the prophet's body be thrown into a pauper's grave.Notice something about Uriah and his contemporary friend and prophet Jeremiah.
Both men proclaimed the same message of the impending judgment of God on Jerusalem for refusing to follow the covenant Yahweh had made with His people.
Both men spoke to the same people (the Jewish religious leaders, King Jehoiakim, and his court, and the people at large).
Both men were faithful prophets.
But notice the differences:
When God called Jeremiah to be his prophet, God told Jeremiah that He would protect Jeremiah. He did so throughout Jeremiah’s life. This promise was never made to Uriah.
In contrast to Uriah, Jeremiah had the powerful scribe Ahikam ben Shaphan who literally served as Jeremiah's protector and body guard. Uriah had little if any support from powerful or influential men in Jerusalem.
People today talk about Jeremiah; few mention much less know about Uriah. When you hear the name Uriah, you think of Uriah the Hittite, the faithful husband of Bathsheba whom King David had killed, not the Uriah the prophet whom Jehoiakim killed.The Lesson from the Life of Uriah the Prophet
Because begin a spokesman for eternal truth involves speaking that truth to power, success should be measured by faithfulness to the message rather than the number of those who follow the messenger.Measuring success by the numbers of people who follow you on social media, or the size of church you lead, or the number of times you get mentioned at the local coffee shop ultimately causes the prophet to lose focus of his mission by being more concerned with his reputation and material success than his Redeemer and the eternal Kingdom.
26 comments:
"We must finally stop appealing to theology to justify our reserved silence about what the state is doing — for that is nothing but fear.
‘OPEN YOUR MOUTH FOR THE ONE WHO IS VOICELESS' — for who in the church today still remembers that that is the least of the Bible’s demands in times such as these?"
(Dietrich Bonhoeffer)
https://sojo.net/articles/11-bonhoeffer-quotes-remember-pastor-who-resisted-evil-unto-death
Wade,
I wish you’d reference what Bible translation you quoted so I say like the T-shirt: “If you disagree with me, you have the right to be wrong.” :)
In quoting Jeremiah 26:20-24, you wrote: “In contrast to Uriah, Jeremiah had the powerful scribe Ahikah ben Shaphan who literally served as Jeremiah’s protector and body guard.”
Vs. “Nevertheless, Ahikam son of Shaphan stood up for Jeremiah and persuaded the court not to turn him over to the mob to be killed.” (Jeremiah 26:24 NLT)
Wade, have you noticed the eight “typos” in this post? (starting at the first)
Akbor/Acbor, s, Ahikah/Ahikam, Bathseba/Bathsheba, Jehoiakiim/Jehoiakim, spolkesman/spokesman, nvolves/involves, and ttruth/truth.
BTW, I liked your “…Rock Stars” as the best reply to my text of Judy and I being in the newspaper.
Rex,
Thanks for the typo list. Wow!
I need to hire you. :)
You can check my comments, too, REX RAY. :)
Hope you all are spared from the terrible weather we are hearing about in your part of the country. Been worried for them what cannot easily get out of the way of disastrous weather.
Maybe I've been watching too many 'tornado' films, but it must be frightening to live under that kind of threat and not have control over it. Stay safe! God keep you all safe.
Christiane,
Living in Oklahoma means you don't have to buy a movie ticket to be entertained in the spring. Just turn on the television and watch the weather.
First, I'm not concerned about typos. The idea in communication is thoughts and ideas, and unless a typo interferes with that, I really couldn't care any less.
Second, we human beings are so used to judging actions by their outcomes, we lose sight of the fact that Jesus is building HIS church, and the worst the world can muster up will not prevail against it. So we'd lament over Uriah's death, much as we do Jim Eliot's. ... Until we see all the results. Which, in the case of Uriah the Prophet ... or even Uriah the Hittite ... we may not see until we lose our sinful-flesh body.
So far, Jesus' building project is going as He planned.
CHRISTIANE,
You’re saying, “Open your mouth for the one who is voiceless” makes me think of the thousands killed before they were born.
Those who say they have a right to do whatever with their bodies don’t understand their rights end where other’s begin.
Years ago, a tornado pasted not far from here. When we had our house built, a ‘tornado room’ was installed. The only time I thought about getting in it was a few weeks ago when it sounded as if lightening was coming through the roof.
Wade, I’m the worst ‘speller’ in the world, but our computer puts a red line under any miss-spelled word and gives the correct spelling. You only need to hire our computer. :)
Bob,
You said, “So far, Jesus' building project is going as He planned.”
Do you have some Scripture for that? I thought Jesus said, “…The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose that way. But the gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult, and only a few ever find it.” (Matthew 7:13-14 NLT)
I’ll never forget you saying, “It’s the bit dog that hollers.”
My son and I just returned from a 5 day trip to Washington DC. Everyone should go at least once. It was very inspiring to visit the museums and memorials. The American Holocaust Museum stood out to me a lot. Throughout the displays on several floors, it was noted that very few churches, even after of learning the truth, spoke up on behalf of those men, women, and children being hauled off and incarcerated and/or killed at the hands of the Nazis. I left the museum knowing the "silence of the church was deafening." Makes me wonder what the church today is announcing to the people around us.
Christiane: Sure Jesus said that, and He also said He will build His church.
I do not think He is failing in that task, in any way.
Of course we can look at the body, and everyone else on earth, and say "That's now how I'd do it", but our ways are not necessarily His ways.
Hello out there BOB CLEVELAND,
I think the comment you are referring to comes from REX RAY. :)
Rileydogbarks,
There should be a special place in Hell for those (namely Hitler) responsible for the Holocaust. News-reels were shown during World II. My cousin recognized our Father in one of them showing a concentration camp at the end of the war. He said later everyone that had the ‘tour’ came out with ‘empty stomachs’.
After the war, our parents taught school to children of American soldiers in Germany for two years. My twin brother and I were sixteen.
https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/nuremberg-trials
“…Held for the purpose of bringing Nazi war criminals to justice, the Nuremberg trials were a series of 13 trials carried out in Nuremberg, Germany, between 1945 and 1949. The defendants, who included Nazi Party officials and high-ranking military officers…state-sponsored murder of some 6 million European Jews (along with an estimated 4 million to 6 million non-Jews).”
We visited the Nuremberg Trials. Headphones were furnished and we chose English to hear. The ‘prosecution lawyers’ had finished and we heard only the ‘defense lawyer’ pleading the guy was only following orders. The judge gave him death.
Christiane: Right you are!
Rex Ray: See above....
And: Hell is as bad as it can be, for anyone who spends eternity there. I doubt it's any hotter for Hitler than for a "good person" who is simply lost.
Me personal thought is that, when we lose our bodies (and brains) made up of sinful flesh, we also lose our ability to grow tired of things, Every day in Heaven will be as indescribably wonderful as the first moment there. And every day in the torment of Hell will be as agonizing as the first moment. And they will never ever get accustomed to it.
Plus they will face the unvarnished truth of what they did here.
Bob, I believe Hell may be something like this.
A Voice from Hell
Oh, why am I here in this place of unrest
When others have entered the land of the blest?
God's way of salvation was preached unto men;
I heard it and heard it, again and again.
Why did I not listen and turn from my sin
And open my heart and let Jesus come in?
For vain earthly pleasures my soul did I sell--
The way I had chosen has brought me to hell.
I wish I were dreaming, but ah, it is true.
The way to be saved I had heard and I knew;
My time on the earth, oh, so quickly fled by,
How little I thought of the day I would die.
When God's Holy Spirit was pleading with me,
I hardened my heart and I turned from His plea.
The way that was sinful, the path that was wide,
I chose and I walked till the time that I died.
Eternally now, I must dwell in this place.
If I from my memory could but erase
The thoughts of my past which are haunting me so.
Oh, where is a refuge to which I can go?
This torture and suffering, how long can I stand?
For Satan and devils this only was planned.
God's refuge is Jesus, the One that I spurned;
He offered salvation, but from Him I turned.
My brothers and sisters I wish I could warn.
Far better would be if I had not been born.
The price I must pay is too horrid to tell--
My life without God led directly to Hell."
Oh, soul without Christ, will these words be your cry?
God's Word so declares it that all men must die.
From hell and its terrors, Oh, flee while you may!
So, come to the Savior; He'll save you today!
Oscar C. Eliason
“…Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things God hath prepared for them that love him.” (I Corinthians 2:9 KJ)
The 21-year-old American B-17 pilot glanced outside his cockpit and froze. He blinked hard and looked again, hoping it was just a mirage. But his co-pilot stared at the same horrible vision. "My God, this is a nightmare," the co-pilot said.
"He's going to destroy us," the pilot agreed.
The men were looking at a gray German Messerschmitt fighter hovering just three feet off their wingtip. It was five days before Christmas 1943, and the fighter had closed in on their crippled American B-17 bomber for the kill.
The B-17 pilot, Charles Brown, was a 21-year-old West Virginia farm boy on his first combat mission. His bomber had been shot to pieces by swarming fighters, and his plane was alone, struggling to stay in the skies above Germany. Half his crew was wounded, and the tail gunner was dead, his blood frozen in icicles over the machine guns.
But when Brown and his co-pilot, Spencer "Pinky" Luke, looked at the fighter pilot again, something odd happened. The German didn't pull the trigger. He stared back at the bomber in amazement and respect. Instead of pressing the attack, he nodded at Brown and saluted. What happened next was one of the most remarkable acts of chivalry recorded during World War II.
Revenge, not honor, is what drove 2nd Lt. Franz Stigler to jump into his fighter that chilly December day in 1943. Stigler wasn't just any fighter pilot. He was an ace. One more kill and he would win The Knight's Cross, German's highest award for valor.
Yet Stigler was driven by something deeper than glory. His older brother, August, was a fellow Luftwaffe pilot who had been killed earlier in the war. American pilots had killed Stigler's comrades and were bombing his country's cities. Stigler was standing near his fighter on a German airbase when he heard a bomber's engine. Looking up, he saw a B-17 flying so low it looked like it was going to land. As the bomber disappeared behind some trees, Stigler tossed his cigarette aside, saluted a ground crewman and took off in pursuit.
As Stigler's fighter rose to meet the bomber, he decided to attack it from behind. He climbed behind the sputtering bomber, squinted into his gun sight and placed his hand on the trigger. He was about to fire when he hesitated. Stigler was baffled. No one in the bomber fired at him.
He looked closer at the tail gunner. He was still, his white fleece collar soaked with blood. Stigler craned his neck to examine the rest of the bomber. Its skin had been peeled away by shells; its guns knocked out. One propeller wasn't turning. Smoke trailed from another engine. He could see men huddled inside the shattered plane tending the wounds of other crewmen.
Then he nudged his plane alongside the bomber's wings and locked eyes with the pilot whose eyes were wide with shock and horror.
Stigler pressed his hand over the rosary he kept in his flight jacket. He eased his index finger off the trigger. He couldn't shoot. It would be murder.
Stigler wasn't just motivated by vengeance that day. He also lived by a code. He could trace his family's ancestry to knights in 16th century Europe. He had once studied to be a priest. A German pilot who spared the enemy, though, risked death in Nazi Germany. If someone reported him, he would be executed.
Yet Stigler could also hear the voice of his commanding officer, who once told him: "You follow the rules of war for you -- not your enemy. You fight by rules to keep your humanity."
Alone with the crippled bomber, Stigler changed his mission. He nodded at the American pilot and began flying in formation so German anti-aircraft gunners on the ground wouldn't shoot down the slow-moving bomber. (The Luftwaffe had B-17s of its own, shot down and rebuilt for secret missions and training.) Stigler escorted the bomber over the North Sea and took one last look at the American pilot. Then he saluted him, peeled his fighter away and returned to Germany.
"Good luck," Stigler said to himself. "You're in God's hands now..." Franz Stigler didn't think the big B-17 could make it back to England and wondered for years what happened to the American aircraft and its crew.
As he watched the German fighter peel away that December day, 2nd Lt. Charles Brown wasn't thinking of the philosophical connection between enemies. He was thinking of survival. He flew his crippled plan, filled with wounded, back to his base in England and landed with one of four engines knocked out, one failing and barely any fuel left. After his bomber came to a stop, he leaned back in his chair and put a hand over a pocket Bible he kept in his flight jacket. Then he sat in silence.
Brown flew more missions before the war ended. Life moved on. He got married, had two daughters, supervised foreign aid for the U.S. State Department during the Vietnam War and eventually retired to Florida.
Late in life, though, the encounter with the German pilot began to gnaw at him. He started having nightmares, but in his dream, there would be no act of mercy. He would awaken just before his bomber crashed.
Brown took on a new mission. He had to find that German pilot. Who was he? Why did he save my life? He scoured military archives in the U.S. and England. He attended a pilots' reunion and shared his story. He finally placed an ad in a German newsletter for former Luftwaffe pilots, retelling the story and asking if anyone knew the pilot.
On January 18, 1990, Brown received a letter. He opened it and read: "Dear Charles, all these years I wondered what happened to that B-17, did she make it home? Did her crew survive their wounds? To hear of your survival has filled me with indescribable joy..." It was Stigler.
He had had left Germany after the war and moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1953. He became a prosperous businessman. Now retired, Stigler told Brown that he would be in Florida come summer and "it sure would be nice to talk about our encounter." Brown was so excited, though, that he couldn't wait to see Stigler. He called directory assistance for Vancouver and asked whether there was a number for a Franz Stigler. He dialed the number, and Stigler picked up.
"My God, it's you!" Brown shouted as tears ran down his cheeks.
Brown had to do more. He wrote a letter to Stigler in which he said: "To say THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU on behalf of my surviving crewmembers and their families appears totally inadequate."
The two pilots would meet again, but this time in person, in the lobby of a Florida hotel. One of Brown's friends was there to record the summer reunion. Both men looked like retired businessmen: they were plump, sporting neat ties and formal shirts. They fell into each other' arms and wept and laughed. They talked about their encounter in a light, jovial tone.
The mood then changed. Someone asked Stigler what he thought about Brown. Stigler sighed and his square jaw tightened. He began to fight back tears before he said in heavily accented English: "I love you, Charlie."
Stigler had lost his brother, his friends and his country. He was virtually exiled by his countrymen after the war. There were 28,000 pilots who fought for the German air force. Only 1,200 survived.
The war cost him everything. Charlie Brown was the only good thing that came out of World War II for Franz. It was the one thing he could be proud of. The meeting helped Brown as well, says his oldest daughter, Dawn Warner.
Brown and Stigler became pals. They would take fishing trips together. They would fly cross-country to each other homes and take road trips together to share their story at schools and veterans' reunions. Their wives, Jackie Brown and Hiya Stigler, became friends.
Brown's daughter says her father would worry about Stigler's health and constantly check in on him.
"It wasn't just for show," she says. "They really did feel for each other. They talked about once a week." As his friendship with Stigler deepened, something else happened to her father, Warner says "The nightmares went away."
Brown had written a letter of thanks to Stigler, but one day, he showed the extent of his gratitude. He organized a reunion of his surviving crew members, along with their extended families. He invited Stigler as a guest of honor.
During the reunion, a video was played showing all the faces of the people that now lived -- children, grandchildren, relatives -- because of Stigler's act of chivalry. Stigler watched the film from his seat of honor.
"Everybody was crying, not just him," Warner says.
Stigler and Brown died within months of each other in 2008. Stigler was 92, and Brown was 87. They had started off as enemies, became friends, and then something more.
After he died, Warner was searching through Brown's library when she came across a book on German fighter jets. Stigler had given the book to Brown. Both were country boys who loved to read about planes.
Warner opened the book and saw an inscription Stigler had written to Brown:
In 1940, I lost my only brother as a night fighter. On the 20th of December, 4 days before Christmas, I had the chance to save a B-17 from her destruction, a plane so badly damaged it was a wonder that she was still flying. The pilot, Charlie Brown, is for me as precious as my brother was. Thanks Charlie.
Your Brother, Franz
REX RAY, thank you, thank you, thank you for that story
so encouraging!
codes of honor do exist among military men and women, yes; and a higher code among all who wish to call themselves humane
these codes are under attack in our time, and I am weary of all the mean-spiritedness, so when a story like this comes round, I soak it up like 'living water' and it eases my grief for those innocents who are being persecuted
will all things come round right? Maybe not in my time. But I think they will in time.
I believe they will.
The story was like medicine for my sad spirit. I cannot thank you enough, old friend. God Bless!
CHRISTIANE,
Well, old friend, I knew if anyone replied to that story, it’d be you. Why? Because you have a tender heart.
CHRISTIANE,
The end of some stories will only be answered in heaven; like the ‘connection’ between two Chaplains in World War II; one an American (our father, Dave Ray) and one a German.
After the German Chaplin died his daughter found an American Bible in his possessions. It had Dave’s name on it. She hired a lawyer to find him. She didn’t know he had also died. The lawyer found that Dave had lived in Bonham, Texas. He read the Bonham newspaper, “Leader” and read a story I’d written how he’d been kept in ‘house arrest’ 13 months in France after the war had ended. (As kids, we kept asking Mama when is Daddy coming home. She always told us he was doing something important.) The newspaper story went like this:
A mandatory meeting of all Chaplains was conducted by a Catholic Chaplain. He ordered all Chaplains to stay 50 miles behind the lines. (I guess he thought Chaplains could do as much for a dead soldier as a live one.) After the meeting, Dave was getting in his Jeep. “Where’re you going?”
“Back to the front. I take my orders from God; not you.” (Not in the newspaper is written on a picture of Dave: “I don’t know how the ‘old goat’ got me transferred from Germany to France.”)
In France, the ‘goat’ failed to court-martial Dave. Then he told him he’d not go home until he agreed to take a ‘colored discharge without honor. Finally, a friend wrote a letter to President Eisenhower what was going on. Eisenhower wrote back the situation had been resolved. (We have a copy of those two letters, and Dave’s discharge papers that read he was one of nine Chaplains that received a Bronze Star for heroic action.)
Ok, back to the lawyer. He came to visit and I gave him a copy of a book Dave had written and it didn’t mentions the German Chaplin. I told him Dave kept a lot of Bibles in his Jeep and gave many to prisoners and probably didn’t know her father.
CHRISTIANE, in heaven her father may remember my father. Oh, the happy memories we'll have. We might even swap some bear stories. :)
CHRISTIANE,
It’s me again. (Hard to sleep due to Cellulitis hurting my ankle.)
On second thought, probable both Chaplains have met and remember each other.
One more story. Toward the end of the War, over a hundred Germans had surrendered. (Disobeying Hitler’s orders to fight to the death.) An MP told Dave the situation:
On the second day, the prisoners were threatening to leave and they didn’t have enough mem to stop them. The prisoners wanted their Commanding Officer rescued. He was in a motorcycle side car when his driver wrecked in the abandoned town; breaking the Commander’s leg who hid when everyone surrendered.
The MP said he knew it wasn’t Dave’s duty, but they’d appreciate it if he could find him. Dave said the Officer had a pistol and his big dog was going to attack him. The German ordered his dog to stop. Dave said his men were asking for him. There was rejoicing when they arrived.
Thank goodness for the intervention of Eisenhower, REX RAY. What a story!
Look, that cellulitis needs attention. I know it takes time to resolve, but are you having it checked? It IS an infection, and it can be treated, you know. If it's being 'stubborn', it will watching. Take it from one who knows: have it looked at.
Speaking of 'taking orders' from irresponsible leaders, I hope all the stirred-up war talk over Iran stops before our young men and women have to fight another needless battle. We've lost enough good people through wars that were started by politicians for the wrong reasons, and my goodness, just once, can our country wise up to the 'crazy' before its too late??
Call your doctor, REX RAY. Cellulitis is no joke. Have it looked at.
This has been a great week for stories. Keep 'em coming. Wonderful stuff! Hope you feel better soon.
Christiane,
Rex Ray is one of the most remarkable men I’ve ever met.
And a tough hombre.
I agree with you - go to the doctor, Rex!
:)
But I walked around Israel with Rex, and the pain he can endure is 10 times stronger than I.
CHRISTIANE, and WADE,
You’re making me blush. I’d read your comments sooner but I talked to this new doctor of Scott & White and told him his cream was making my ankle worse. He had said if it didn’t work (plan A), he’d go to plan B. He wanted me to text him pictures. I sent ten of my ankle and six of my hand and fingers that I’d taken during the last three years.
“SEE A DOCTOR” made me smile because I’ve seen so many in the last seven years. Sometimes I feel like the lady in the Bible that was the worse off from doctors until she touched the cloths of Jesus.
The worst experience was in the Dallas VA Hospital because pictures show I was worse after five days. I contacted our two Texas Senators, Ted Cruz and John Cornyn.
They have so many patients it’s easy to get lost in the shuffle. I didn’t get anything to eat for 18 hours, but that’s not the worst. My poor roommate hurt so bad he moaned and grown all night; I went to sleep at 5 AM from exhaustion. They promise another room but it didn’t happen. I felt so sorry for him and his family. His wife was in a wheelchair. When they parked at the hospital, her daughter wouldn’t let her use the handicap sticker for their car because she said it would be stolen. It cost them $163 to retrieve it from being towed. One doctor would order a test and another would cancel it. One ordered my ankle to be X-rayed, but only my finger was X-rayed. The worst news; I was told the first 3 days of the IV drip was done wrong. One guy said he’d worked there 17 years and agreed with me that “There is too many cooks in the kitchen.”
I was given ten ways they could get money from me. Even said if I hired a lawyer, I’d have to tell them how he would be paid.
It ended with them getting a black eye from the Senators and me paying over $1,700.
Hey, that’s only one episode. :) I’ve been in three other hospitals. Had 3 lacer vein surgery’s, skin graft, three barometric pressure chamber treatments, one artery surgery. Treated by one doctor 3 times a week for 3 months.
If I couldn’t walk the isle when Judy and I were married, she was going to carry me piggy-back and we’d call it Sadie Hawkins’ Day. :) The first time I met her in college I was on two crutches from a motorcycle wreck. 57 years later, I’d improved: one cane and ONLY one crutch. :)
She planted a garden, and we ate the first green beans today. (Delicious) I’m working on a 40-foot combination merry-go-round and seesaw. (They have them in Viet Nom.) It’s powered by a person on each end that takes turns of pushing on the ground; up and forward. I plan to have people getting a ‘free ride’.
Beside the slide, we have a 14-foot merry-go-round with chairs bolted. We’ve named it the “Ghost” because wind makes it turn with no one on it. It’s close to a 30-foot seesaw and a twist-up and down-swing. I had made my father a 50-foot archway 50 years ago that had flag poles. We had added a 7 foot star that lights up at night and two hay rake wheels at the bottom that belonged to our Uncle Don. I used to drive the horses that pulled it. We took my brother-in-law’s suggestion of flying the Texas and United States flags with a sign: “Two Flags over Texas”. There’s been 670 people down the slide with 1,561 trips. One kid said, “This is better than six flags…it’s free!”
Great story Rex Ray! We have lost such a treasure trove of stories just like that with the men and women who have died. May God bless our veterans, our current service members, those that have been lost in battle, and those who fight for justice today with or without a gun.
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