On September 11th, Elderly War Veteran Speaks His Mind about the Cost of Freedom in America

Sept. 11, 2015 - PRLog -- On September 11^th, Elderly War Veteran Speaks His Mind about the Cost of Freedom in America

Scottsdale, AZ (September 10, 2015) – On the Eve of September 11^th, as many Americans turn their thoughts to freedom and remembering those who have lost their lives in defense of it- one 85 year old Veteran of the Korean War, Gene DiBenedetto, records his personal thoughts on the high Cost of Freedom.

In his moving video and open letter, DiBenedetto hopes to spread his message that freedom isn’t free to as many as will listen while he is still able to do so.

DiBenedetto recorded this video as a challenge to Americans to keep their will to fight in the face of those who would take her freedom.

He “wishes to exercise his freedom of speech while (he) still has it.”

For more information please see open letter attached and The Cost of Freedom Youtube video (https://youtu.be/RgxEPBszfrg) here. To contact Gene DiBenedetto or for questions, please see contact information above.



The Cost of Freedom

I am 85 years old, the son of Italian immigrants. I served in the army for approximately five years before and during the Korean War.  One son has served in the army.  Our grandson is a helicopter pilot in the Navy.  He served a tour in the Persian Gulf.  We have a granddaughter and her husband in the Marines.  The last three are Naval Academy graduates.  We as a family well understand the duty to country and freedom.

I am exercising my freedom of speech while I still have it.  Our freedoms are at risk.

I wish to address probably the most emotional issue in the nation today.  It is the sacrifice required to “defend and protect” the Constitution and the core value of this great nation, freedom.

Grave threats to freedom now exist from both inside and outside America.  From the outside Americans know there are some nations and many other radical, inhumane elements whose only objective is to destroy us.

Everything we are, everything we stand for, freedom.

America is truly the light of the world.  They want to extinguish this light.  The preservation of freedom is in danger.

The PBS public viewing of dead American soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq has personalized war.  We think of these soldiers as husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, sons, daughters and dear friends.  They are!  We can no longer bear the thought of even one soldier being killed.  It hurts.  It's too personal.  It should be!  The value of every American life is integral to who we are.  The price of freedom is costly and painful.

In reference to the Iraqi Army, Secretary of Defense, Ashton Carter said, "There is no will to fight."  Correct.  Many Americans now believe we, too, have "no will to fight.”

The greatest threat to freedom is from inside America.

After Independence and Labor Day holiday celebrations and the tributes to the fallen, the cookouts and fireworks, the vast majority of Americans return to the routine of comfortable daily lives and to apathy and insidious complacency.  From the “Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln”, “If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher.  As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time or die by suicide.”

April 19, 1775, at the “rude bridge” in Concord, Massachusetts, the Minute men “fired the shot heard round the world.”  The battle for independence had begun.  The first cost of freedom had been paid.

On July 4, 1776, Congress proclaimed the Declaration of Independence.  The final words of this document attributed to Thomas Jefferson are "We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor." Congress and our third President simply and clearly defined freedom and the cost of freedom.

On November 19, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln gave his Gettysburg Address. “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal  …  that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain.”

On January 20, 1961, in his inaugural address, President John F. Kennedy stated “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us good or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and success of liberty.”

The truth of our heritage must continually live in our hearts, minds, and souls.

If we fight for this truth, we will be free.

This is America!

Gene DiBenedetto, Cave Creek, AZ