A few Memorial Days ago, I was sitting comfortably on my sofa, enjoying salty snacks and a refreshing sweet tea while watching a program honoring our military on TV. Mary would inform me when the charcoals were ready to throw on the steaks. Life was good.

Featured in the TV program was Veteran actor, Charles Durning, who was a U.S. Army Ranger during WWII. Durning won the Silver Star for gallantry and was awarded three Purple Hearts for bravery at Normandy.

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Despite his remarkable achievements and sacrifices for freedom, still moved after all these years, Durning humbly stood at the podium and wept for his fallen brothers. Wow.  Do they make real men like Durning anymore?

After the TV program honoring Durning and other American heroes, the following program honored great American conscientious objectors.

Folks, it was quite annoying watching these guys, conscientious objectors, being portrayed as superior human beings while pontificating about the evils of war and why they chose not to participate. I thought, “You guys are free to enjoy success, freedom and spout your crap ‘in English’ because brave men like Charles Durning fought on your behalf. How dare you!”

Debbie Lee is the mom of Marc Alan Lee, the first Navy SEAL killed in Iraq. On numerous occasions, Marc stepped up putting himself at risk to defend his fellow soldiers. In response to the death of her decorated son and experiencing first hand the challenges facing the families of fallen soldiers, Debbie Lee founded AmericasMightyWarriors.org. (more…)

It always impresses me when an aged actor manages a comeback that is authentic, one based on more than mere nostalgia, one appealing to an entirely new generation of moviegoers. Jackie Gleason spent most of the 1970s appearing in pale television retreads of his 1950s heyday, and for most of that time he was absent from the big screen entirely. A revered comedic master, yes — but nevertheless his career as an innovator and taste-maker seemed long over. Then came Smokey and the Bandit, a fitting capstone to a long career of memorable portrayals and endless belly-laughs.

Born in 1916 in Brooklyn, Gleason was no stranger to tragedy. His sickly brother died when he was three, and his mother died when he was nineteen. But it was his father vanishing that gouged the biggest hole in his soul. “I was about nine when one day my pop didn’t come home,” Gleason said in later years. “A few days before, my mom and he had a violent argument and he took every picture out of the house that had him in it. That should have been the tip-off, but I was too young to know.” (more…)

Betrayed by Liberal Hollywood

Psychologists say that a parent’s grief over the death of a child is “the most difficult loss to endure and surely among the most difficult to integrate into one’s life” because our children are an enormous part of our legacy, and “in their deaths, a large part of our own future dies.”  The natural order of our lives has been turned upside down, bringing on an emotional chaos.

For the parents of military men and women who have died after volunteering to serve their country and walking into the face of death in the 21^st century’s war on terror, this grief and chaos has been exponentially multiplied by liberal Hollywood.  But one has to actually walk this path to understand it.  The anti-war sentiment and films that have spewed from liberal actors, producers, and directors have burdened our hearts unspeakably as they have served only to aide the greatest enemy our country has ever faced and to deface and demoralize the greatest ambassadors our country has: the men and women who wear the uniforms of the United States military. (more…)

This week’s Washington Times column:

SIMI VALLEY, Calif. | After spending two weeks on something akin to a fact-finding mission in depressed New York and depleted Washington, D.C., I found no answers to our nation’s mounting ills. I discovered that there is much to be angry about and unlimited reasons for deep concern. But on the evening after my return, the stars aligned on the outskirts of Los Angeles at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, and for a brief moment I felt safe again in America.

On Saturday, my wife and I were privileged to attend the second annual “Celebration of Freedom Gala.” We joined more than 1,000 others who, like us, were electrified to honor 43 of the 98 living Medal of Honor recipients. We also gave our thanks to former first lady Nancy Reagan, war hero and actor Charles Durning, and Gen. David H. Petraeus. (more…)