This Bible verse has been read and shared many times this past Memorial Day weekend.

“Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” John 15:13 (NIV)

The men and women that we honored and remembered this past weekend did just that, not only for their friends and families, but also to all of the citizens of this great country.

From the lives lost during the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, WWI, WWII, the Korean and Vietnam Wars, and the current war on terror in Afghanistan and Iraq, all died paying the price for freedom. Freedom for their families and freedom for the country they gave their life up to serve.

From the time our country was founded the cost of freedom neither has nor will ever be free. There are always those who want to destroy the way of the life that we enjoy in our homeland. Whether if be jealousy or just evil minds who want to destroy what another has, freedom comes with a large price tag.

The success of our country seems to put a bull’s eye right on the back of Americans. The freedoms we enjoy and have become accustomed to have been hard earned and paid for by the blood shed by American soldiers for over 200 years. As long as this country stands there will be those who want to destroy what and who it stands for. Unfortunately, the price of freedom continues to escalate and American lives are put on the lien each day protecting their fellow citizens, friends and families.

Each young man and now young women who ever put on the uniform of the United States of America Armed Forces did so knowing what could possibly be expected of them. The price of freedom would be resting on their shoulders and they left behind their families and friends and fought the battle for American freedom, with the majority being on foreign soil, with each soldier bearing the burden placed on them.

The red, white and blue of our American flag flew proudly in the breeze this weekend, moving gracefully over a free country, in a large part to those who paid the ultimate price to defend her, with all they had, down to their own lives.

May we never forget those young men and women who never made it back home, and those who are now serving and those who will serve, and will sacrifice their life so you and I can live in this great country. May we continue to live in the land of the free because of the brave, the American soldier.

God Bless America!

Randy Garrison is the president and publisher of the Hartselle Enquirer.