The price of freedom. Memorial Day Tribute.

When you live in a small border city such as Brownsville and the majority of the population is 90% Mexican and everyone speaks Spanish, it sometimes is very easy to forget that you actually are in the United States.   We take many things for granted because we don’t know the value placed on them.  One of the many things we take for granted is our freedom.  In this great nation, you can be who you want to be and really not worry about getting persecuted. Being homosexual is punishable by death in some parts around the world, can you imagine that? Being hanged based on your sexual preference. Practicing another religion is also punishable by death in certain countries. Even sometimes watching movies is punishable by death as in the case of many people living in North Korea for smuggling DVD’s from South Korea.  You can quickly find out how certain freedom’s are quickly taken away by just driving across to  Matamoros.

While Mexico is pretty much on par with the United States with constitutional rights, because of the Drug War ravaging that country many of these rights are taken away. Many people are not even able to run a business anymore because they have quota’s they have to pay to the drug cartels. People cannot buy a new car or truck for the fear of being it carjacked by the drug traffickers. Journalists cannot even report any news relating to drug cartels because their lives have been threatened. We can only wish our neighbors in the south best of luck and hope their situation improves because everyone deserves to live freely without the fear of persecution.

How did we go about having all these liberties in the first place?

Revolutionary War, Well, we have to go way back to the nation’s early days in the with George Washington leading us to victory against the British.  If it wasn’t for this specific event, we may be speaking English with a British accent and who knows, maybe Brownsville would be called Brownvilleshire and we would be infatuated with the Royal Family.

The war of 1812 (started that year) which was against the British Empire, Canada (part of Britain then) and Indian tribes.  The British promised the Indians their own nation and it is why they united to fight against us. There was many casualties on both sides and one notable event was the burning of the white house which british troops entered the capital and set the building ablaze. Nobody actually won this war and a treaty was signed to make peace, the treaty of ghent.

The Mexican-American War.  This war is important since the first major battle in this war was the Battle of Palo Alto which of course happened to be here in Brownsville. This war was fought primarily because the US wanted to expand all the way to pacific. Winning this war allowed us to claim Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming, in addition by signing the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo the Rio Grande was the new official border between the US and Mexico in Texas as previously it was the Nueces River.

The Spanish-American War.  It would be kind of boring having no reggaeton without the likes of Daddy Yankee, Don Omar, Tego Calderon and no Ricky Martin, Marc Anthony, Chayenne as all these artists come from Puerto Rico. During this war we were able to liberate Cuba from Spain and we gained additional territories  Guam and Puerto Rico.  Many consider this war important to recognizing the United States as global dominance and influence.

The first Great War, World War I also known as the War of trenches. An assassination of a duke in Serbia from a terrorist many say started the war and the likes of Germany, Austria and the Ottoman Empire against the allied powers of Great Brian, France, Russia.  All of Europe was at war and there was many casualties.  About 1.5 Armenians were killed which many consider the “Armenian Genocide.”   Our nation was neutral in the beginning of this war however the sinking of the Lusitania by German U-Boats (carrying 160 americans) paved the way for the US to join the war. The final straw was when the British intercepted a telegram from Germany over to Mexico to have the Mexicans join the war against the allies and that they (the germans) would help Mexico recapture the land from the Mexican-American War.

The second Great War, World War II.  What many consider the war of all wars and practically the whole world itself was involved one way or another.  Hitler was conquering Europe and exterminating the jews,  however the US tried to stay neutral but had no choice and entered the war when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor.   The allied invasion of Normandy in France proved a major turning point in Europe and of course the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  If the allies did not win this war, many of us wouldn’t be alive as Hitler would of annihilated every race he considered inferior.

The Korean War.   Many of you don’t know that North Korea and South Korea was one country for the longest time, however after World War II ended, The Soviet Union drew a line on the 38th parallel and divided Korea in half.  The Soviet Union established a communist government in the North and the United States established a western style government in the South.  In the 1950’s the North invaded the South and of course the US being a peacekeeper in the world intervened.  Three years later and after many casualties on both sides, a armistice was agreed upon on both sides to stop fighting and the division of Korea continues till present day on the same 38th parallel.  Unfortunately for North Korea, they are living in the dinosaur age as where South Korea has prospered due to its capitalistic economy and is ranked as one of the top nations in the world and have several big companies that we buy things from such as Samsung, Hyundai, Kia Motors, LG electronics.

The Vietnam War. Like the Korean War, the reasons for the United States entering the war were very similar.  France occupied Vietnam in the 1860’s all the way through 1954. The treaty signed at the Geneva Conference separated North Vietnam and South Vietnam in the same way as Korea.  The rise of the Ho Chi Minh government and with the invasion of North Vietnam on Saigon, the US intervened to prevent communism from spreading towards the rest of Southeast Asia.  After about 20 years of fighting the US pulled out of Vietnam and lost the war. Losing the war was a great blow to the moral of the United States being a technically superior country, we were no match to fighting in the jungle against the Vietcong.  Repercussion of losing, caused communism to spread towards Laos and Cambodia.

The Gulf War.   In the early 1990’s,  Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and this prompted the coalition of 34 nations to join in the fight.  The US led the fight known as Operation Desert Storm and was able to remove Saddam from Kuwait.  Saddam angry at losing the war, exploded many oil wells in Kuwait. Red Adair from Texas was hired to put the majority of this oil well fires out.

Operation Iraqi Freedom and the US War in Afghanistan  September 11th, 2001 marked an important day.  Many of us can remember exactly what we were doing prior to the World Trade Center buildings getting pummeled by two jumbo jets.  President George W. Bush issued an act of war against terrorism and this led us invading Iraq and Afghanistan to free the people from oppression. We were able to remove Saddam Hussein and Bin Laden from power, although our objective hasn’t fully been met in stabilizing the region.  Unfortunately we are not able to make everyone happy and we have new enemies such as ISIS emerging and taking over a large portion of Iraq and Syria.

Many of us celebrated Memorial day as another day to make a fantastic BBQ and cook burgers and hotdogs and enjoy a nice day off from work but hopefully after reading this it gives you a little bit of information to remember the soldiers that paid the ultimate sacrifice to allow us to have this day and do all these things with our family and friends.  We want to pay tribute to these brave men and women who without them, we wouldn’t be here where we are today.  We wouldn’t be able to write this #nomorecheezmeh blog if not for them.  Thank you and we appreciate everything you have sacrificed.