Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
On the 82nd anniversary of D-Day Saturday, a ceremony honoring all U.S. veterans took place at the Kosciusko Community Fairgrounds as part of Freedom Fest for America’s 250th birthday.
D-Day is when Allied forces launched the largest amphibious invasion in history on the beaches of Normandy, France, during World War II, marking the beginning of the liberation of Nazi-occupied Western Europe.
The hour-long ceremony Saturday under the nation’s largest free-flying flag included the presentation of colors by the Warsaw JROTC, a flyover by a KC-135 Stratotanker out of Grissom Air Force Base, the national anthem by music artist Keenie, a couple patriotic songs by musician Jason Michael Carroll and speeches by Republican Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita, Republican Indiana Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith and American Legion Post 49 Squadron Commander Johnny Butler. Beckwith also joined Keenie for singing of “God Bless America.”
Veteran Ken Locke, American Legion Post 49, welcomed everyone and gave the closing prayer, as well as presented special patches to all of the veterans present at the ceremony. He also thanked Echoes of the Past and Kosciusko County Convention, Recreation and Visitors Commission (KCCRVC) for sponsoring the flag; McHatton-Sadler Funeral Chapels for the recognition that was given to veterans; and Kosciusko County America 250 Coordinator Mike Loher.
“Mike, I want you to know from all of us we owe you a great debt of gratitude and you have been through the war on this. So, thank you very much for all your work on this. You deserve a lot of credit. Thank you very much,” Locke told him.
In his comments, in part, Rokita said, “I understand that this today was actually a 20-year vision and it’s not going to be a one-time deal. It’s ironic that the first Freedom Fest here is on our 250th anniversary, but that’s not the purpose. Think of this as a prototype. Think of this as a proof-of-concept for what this community can do every year. And if you think about the work that was involved today - whether it was with my office, whether it was with local government or even this flyover, guys ... the cost of that flyover is in the tens of thousands of dollars ... and then the paperwork! The paperwork of dealing with the federal government to get something like that done. Mike Loher, I am now proclaiming as the unofficial mayor of Kosciusko County for getting all of this done.”
Rokita said the message Saturday comes in the form of a question.
“And the question to us as Hoosiers, as patriotic Americans, is what is the next 250 years going to look like? Is it going to be more like the last 250 years, or are we going to try some different experiment? Like Venezuela. Or Cuba. Or Russia. Or name the country. And it’s not a throw-away line, it’s not a condemning line, it’s an honest question to all of us because, as Ronald Reagan said, none of this is passed down to us at the bloodstream from generation to generation. It has to be worked at. It has to be fought for in every generation,” he said.
“And that fighting certainly occurs on the battlefield. Certainly in the cockpit of that 707 converted to a KC-135 Stratotanker. But it also has to occur at your county council. That fight for this country has to occur at this fair board. That fight for our country has to occur at the Statehouse where you hold Micah accountable, where you hold me accountable. And that’s the hard part of free enterprise systems. And that’s the hard part of the last 250 years,” Rokita continued. “It takes each one of us to fight to keep government small, to fight to keep government accountable because this last 250 years, and the reason for this Freedom Fest in my opinion, is it wasn’t an accident. We experienced something that the world had never seen before, and that something is called American Exceptionalism.”
He said America’s Founding Fathers, who knew God, put something in place that was “very radical.”
“No longer would we be subject to anyone except two things: From now on, our government was going to be subject to us. And that means me and Micah and the rest are going to be way down here below ‘We, the People.’ And the only two things above us would be rule of law applied to each of us equally, no matter our gender - and there’s only two genders by the way - no matter how rich we were, no matter how poor we were,” Rokita stated. “... And the only thing above the rule of law applied to each of us equally is God himself. That was the order that our founders gave us, and it’s radical.”
Locke then honored all the veterans who were present. He called them out by when they served, beginning with World War II then Korean War, Vietnam era, Cold War and peace time, and War on Terror veterans from Desert Storm to present, and had them line up to receive the patches and for photos.
“On behalf of the United States of America, on behalf of all free-loving Americans and not-so-free-loving Americans sometimes, thank you, veterans, for your service to our nation. You are greatly appreciated,” Locke stated.
Butler, the son of a Vietnam veteran and the assistant director for Honor and Remember State of Indiana Chapter and co-director for the Indiana Run for the Fallen, then spoke.
In part, he said, “Talk about 250 years of freedom, this is also 25 years in September for 9/11. Twenty-five years since we saw our country attacked; 250 years since ordinary citizens stood up and said, ‘No more tyranny. We’re done. We’re going our own way. We’re going to be independent, yet united.”
He then spoke about the Honor and Remember program, which was started because of the death of Spc. Tony Lutz on Dec. 29, 2005, by a sniper in Iraq. The goal is to make the Honor and Remember flag the national symbol of remembrance, and he encouraged everyone to look up honorandremember.org and sign the Declaration of Remembrance “to say that we’re going to recognize our 1.4 million service members who have died for our freedom and get House Bill Resolution 1363 out of committee and up for a vote to make the Honor and Remember flag our national symbol of remembrance.”
Beckwith said, in part, “This is your republic. This Constitution was established 240 years ago, roughly; the Declaration was 250 years ago, but the Constitution is not the law that governs you as a citizen, it’s the law that governs those who govern. So, as Todd was saying, we are under that law. We can’t step out of bounds from what God has said, what our Founding Fathers put into action in 1787 there in Constitution Hall. So here we are today, 250 years after the famous Declaration was declared that we were going to be an independent people. That we were going to have no king but King Jesus.”
Quoting John Adams, Beckwith said, “‘We have no sovereign but God almighty and we have no king but King Jesus.’ And that was a stick-it-in-the-eye of King George, who was being tyrannical, he was abusing his powers, he was abusing the people who he was supposed to shepherd and lead. And the fighting spirit of America was born.”
He said if there was one word that described Americans, it was “fighters.”
“We’ve always been a people that said we love good and we hate evil. Remember, it’s good to hate evil. Love what God loves and hate what he hates and you will protect this amazing Republic for your children and your children’s children,” Beckwith said. “But if you get soft, if you stop hating evil, then the evil is going to take root in our land here and all the sacrifice that we see on the wall here from our Kosciusko heroes, from the men who laid down their ultimate sacrifice, their life, their blood - all of that will be for nothing if we stop fighting.”
