Honor, duty and country

Posted: Tuesday, June 2, 2009 2:03 pm
By: By Russell Cherry

I was honored to officiate at a wedding a few days ago between a Lance Corporal Marine and his lovely bride. I thanked him for his service to our country and his devotion to duty. Honor and country are two things that the Corps takes great pride in. Our country is in perilous times with the economy being in the state its in. According to what I read in the newspapers numerous car dealerships are being closed or forced into bankruptcy. As I understand it, banks loaned money to dealers who purchased new automobiles from manufacturers they could not sale. Now the auto makers will not take them back.
The price of gasoline caused consumers to shy away from gas-guzzling cars that are too expensive to own and operate. Some car salesmen are making a living selling automobiles one after another with the same sales pitch about all of them being previously owned by some little-old-lady who lived locally and drove them only to church or the market. Suffice to say many people got to the point of not having much faith in what any car dealer had to say. They were considered people with the gift-of-gab and no honor.
Honor means a lot to most folks when it comes to spending their hard earned money. When it comes to profit, honor is a cheap commodity.
A member of my family purchased a new refrigerator-freezer and paid it off in monthly installments. The appliance dealer told that it was a bargain and guaranteed it for four years. In addition the compressor and any tubing that contained refrigerant would be covered and additional year against leaks or motor-failure. The proud owner enjoyed the appliance for a period of about 24 months and one morning realized that it was not cooling properly when her frozen produce began to thaw.
Having the receipt in hand that contained the date of purchase, the confident home-owner phoned the appliance dealer and requested repair for her refrigerator-freezer. She had insurance that would cover the cost of the food that she lost and was happy about that. She was told that the service department was swamped with work and it would be two weeks before her appliance could be repaired. Patiently she waited and when the promised day for repairs arrived no one showed up to fix anything. She called the dealer again and was told the repairman would be there in three days. He never showed up. After another month of broken promises and frustration she put the appliance into her storage shed where it remained for six months after she stopped calling week-after-week pleading for service and receiving nothing but broken promises. Finally she had to purchase a new appliance from another source. One has to have a refrigerator in the home today. Suffice-to-say there is no honor among thieves.
The courts are full of people who have believed in people and trusted them as being truthful. Happily, I do believe in my heart that the vast-majority of people in America today are truthful when it comes to dealing with John Q. Public. A few rotting apples make a whole barrel stink. I have never known a person who got a dishonest dollar and enjoyed spending it.
The honest, hard-working people of this planet are the glue that is holding the fabric of this world together. When the history of our time of trial is written and prosperous times return to the world once again, let those who judge us say that it was people with Christian values who survived when the economy went over Niagara Falls. As far as the others – they will never find the barrel.
God bless America again – and we will all get in on it!
Good night: Brother Russell
WCP 6.02.09