Dear Reader,
Thank you for allowing me to share my story with you. I will endeavor to bring truth, light, wisdom and a viewpoint to challenge you to want to know more. You may be wondering as to my perspective, my experience, and my heart. To sum up who I am in a short phrase is quite easily done. I am a Christian constitutionalist Marine. I believe there is only one truth and that is God’s truth. All other so-called truths are distractions or outright lies to turn people from God. I also believe that I am called to share God’s truth with gentleness and kindness. The two main commands from God is to love Him with everything I have (heart, mind, body, soul, and strength) and to love others as He loves them. God loved us before we loved Him, so that is the model I choose to follow. I want to point out that I am flawed, and frequently, to my dismay, I fail at this. So, I ask up front for your patience and forgiveness when I fall short. What does it mean to be a Christian to me? That is simple to understand, but difficult to live. There are three tests to apply to anything you do, say, or think. The 1st is: Does God say to do it, and is it verifiable in his word, the Bible? The 2nd is: Does God say don’t do it, and is it verifiable in his Word? The 3rd one is a little trickier. Does it honor God? That one is open to interpretation, and only you and God will know your heart on the matter. I would say if it doesn’t violate the first 2 and is moral, legal and ethical, and your motives are God-focused, you should be fine.
What does it mean to be a constitutionalist? Our founding patriarchs knew that our rights as humans were given by God, and so only God could take them away. They also knew that man is corrupt and would try to seize power over other men, so they set up fail-safes to reduce that risk. They also knew that a democratic society would crush anyone not in the click; so we are a Republic which affords the best protection for everyone, not just the powerful. Politics were not meant to be a career because politicians will corrupt the office and be a drain on society. Lawyers were not to control the government as they would write laws that favored them and not the people. The individual farmer, clergy, business owner, parent, teacher, everyday citizen has a responsibility and obligation to serve and participate in our governmental process.
What does it mean to be a Marine? For the Love of God, Country, Corps, Corps is a broader word for the family. I was willing to risk life and limb, sacrifice, suffer and even die to defend the United States of America. I was then; I am willing now; and will do so in the future. I took an oath to defend the United States and its constitution from our enemies both foreign and domestic. My oath does not have an expiration date.
My experiences are a different matter. I grew up in a non-Christian home in an all-Jewish neighborhood. I had a non-participating father who left when I was 18 months, and a mother who worked as many as three jobs to keep four kids together. Talk about rough and wild. It was the ‘60s, I was being bounced around from Philadelphia to Baltimore, and we had little supervision. Racial tension and riots were a regular occurrence, but God was looking out for me.
When I was 5, I met a Christian Marine, home from Vietnam, who shared the Love of God, Country, and Corps with me. That same year, I met an amazing woman whom I would later call Momma Shirley (or mostly just Momma) who took me in as one of her own. Because of the love she showed me, I didn’t realize that she was black and I wasn’t. Who knew? I accepted Jesus Christ as my savior when I was 5 and again, officially, when I was 10 in Oklahoma. I joined the Marines several days after my 17th birthday. One of the many reasons is that I hate bullies. I hate them as individuals, as companies, and as countries. The Iran incident had just happened, and I was going to do my part not to let it happen again. I went to Beirut in 1982 to stop the bullies from murdering women and children. I was injured, and honorably discharged in 1985. I found out later that I had been poisoned while at Camp LeJeune because of contaminated water. I used poisoned because they knew about it for 30 years, hid the fact, and did nothing to warn us.
I then went into sales where I moved up the ranks into management within two years. I have opened businesses, managed businesses, and started businesses since 1988. I have held high-level positions in sales, marketing, operations, finance, customer service, and diverse technologies. I am a process-improvement and mission-focused professional. I am an avid learner and thirst for knowledge of God, Country, and Corps. I am a father, a Pop Pop, philanthropist, pilot, scuba diver, martial artist, athlete, and traveler. I am fascinated with languages and cultures from around the world. Currently, I am launching a company to spread the Love of God, Country and Corps via enriching the lives of Veterans, First Responders, and their families through Employment, Training, Mentoring, and Resources.
Here is my challenge for you. I learned ignorance is not an excuse, but a condition. Once exposed to something you don’t know or understand, you can no longer say you didn’t know. The 1st time you didn’t know, which is a form of ignorance. The 2nd time is a lack of caring, which is the definition to which I am speaking. How many have read the Declaration of Independence? I am listing it below. Read it and tell me if you doubt the United States was founded on the principals of God in the bible.
IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States of America
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.
New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts: John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island: Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
Connecticut: Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
New York: William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
New Jersey: Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
Pennsylvania: Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross
Delaware: Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean
Maryland: Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia: George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
North Carolina: William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
South Carolina: Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
Georgia: Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton
For Love of God, Country & Corps 