Friday, September 15, 2006

Why Are Our Heroes Going Without Recognition?

This Human Events article tells just a few of the stories of heroes among America's current fighting forces, including the late Paul Ray Smith shown at left. I'm sure you'll find it compelling, inspiring reading.

But let's not stop there.

Why not print this article and read it to the family after dinner sometime this weekend? Perhaps take just a testimony at a time and spread the reading over a few meals? Appropriately enough then, take a few minutes to pray for the men and women serving our country in these ways. Pray too for the country's leaders who make the decisions about our military strategy and direction. And, yes, pray too that Americans would become more worthy of the sacrifice these heroes are making in our behalf.

Another "action step" that I'd suggest would be to pass around the Human Events article to friends and family -- maybe even ask your pastor or Sunday School leader if one or two of the stories in the article could be shared aloud.

And finally, how about encouraging other media to do a better job in honoring our heroes?

You can do that simply by using the "Forward to a Friend" option at the right of the article. You'll find there an e-mail form all ready to go wherever you want to send it. Just enter the e-mail address and a brief message explaining why you're sending the article along.

In my case, I used information from the Media Address page over at the Media Research Center to forward the Human Events article to the following: Newsweek, Time, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Boston Globe, Chicago Sun-Times, Dallas Morning News, Denver Post, Detroit Free Press, Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald, Minneapolis Star Tribune, The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, San Francisco Chronicle, USA Today, The Washington Post, ABC News, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, and NBC News. (CBS has its own built-in e-mail form at the bottom of the page at http://www.cbsnews.com/).

Now, the e-mail form at the Human Events "Forward to a Friend" page will only take about 250 characters at a time in the recipients box, so I only sent 4 or 5 at a time. Sure, you've got to take a little time, but it's worth it. And to save you a bunch of time, here's the addresses themselves -- letters@newsweek.com, letters@time.com, conedit@ajc.com, news@globe.com, letters@suntimes.com, letterstoeditor@dallasnews.com, letters@denverpost.com, business@det-freepress.com, letters@latimes.com, HeraldEd@herald.com, politics@startribune.com, letters@nytimes.com, DailyNews.Opinion@phillynews.com, chronletters@sfgate.com, editor@usatoday.com, Letterstoed@washpost.com, support@abcnews.go.com, feedback@cnn.com, letters@msnbc.com, nightly@news.nbc.com

You see, most of the work is done for you! So, what are you waiting for?