The Benny Show - Never forget the true meaning of Memorial Day

Episode Date: May 30, 2022

On this special episode of The Benny Show, we explore the history of Memorial Day and we remember all those who served that made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedoms. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

There are very few things that you can be certain of in life. But you can always be sure the sun will rise each morning. You can bet your bottom dollar that you'll always need air to breathe and water to drink. And, of course, you can rest assured that with Public Mobile's 5G subscription phone plans, you'll pay the same thing every month. With all of the mysteries that life has to offer, a few certainties can really go a long way. Subscribe today for the peace of mind you've been searching for. Public Mobile, different is calling. Today is May 30th, 2022, and it is Memorial

Day on this special edition of The Benny Show. We will go through the histories of Memorial Day and exactly what this day means. Please join us. My name is Benny Johnson, and this is The Benny Show. The dignity, daring, and devotion of the American military is unrivaled anywhere in history and any place in the world. Every time we sing our anthem, every time its rousing chorus swells our hearts with pride, we renew the eternal bonds of loyalty to our fallen heroes. We think of the soldiers who spend their final heroic moments on distant battlefields to keep us safe at home. We remember the young Americans who never got the chance to grow old, but whose legacy will outlive us all. Americans gave their lives to carry that flag through piercing waves, blazing fires, sweltering deserts, and storms of bullets and shrapnel. We stand with you today and all days to come,

remembering and grieving for America's greatest heroes. In spirit and strength and loyalty and love and character and courage, they were larger than life itself. They were angels sent from above, and they are now rejoined with God in the glorious kingdom of heaven. My name is Benny Johnson, and this is The Benny Show. Today is Memorial Day, and it is with an extremely grateful heart that we have a very special show for you today. We are going to go through the history

of Memorial Day, the history of the sacrifice as 45 said there in our open, angels truly sent from heaven to protect us here on earth. Memorial Day is the day where we remember those who sacrificed their lives, gave the fullest measure of devotion, as Lincoln said, or as it is put in the Bible, love has no equal than those who sacrifice for their friends. Greater love has no one than this, than somebody laid down his life for his friends. John 15, 13. Ladies and gentlemen, we're going to talk about the greatest love, the love of the nearly 3 million American combat casualties in the history of this short country. America as a country, since its founding, has been engaged in nearly 100

different conflicts and many different wars. Among these wars, the highest casualty rates for combat deaths are wars on our own soil. The American Civil War had over 1 million American deaths associated with it. 214 combat deaths directly. The World War II had 291 combat, 291,000 combat deaths directly. Forgive me. World War I had 53,000 American combat deaths. The Vietnam War had 47,000 direct combat deaths. The Korean War, 33,000 direct combat deaths. But of total deaths, ladies and gentlemen, in the armed services during wartime or conflict, there has been nearly 3 million. And so we wish to honor the 2,852,901 American soldiers, seamen, Marines, flyers, all of the above, every single one of you who sacrificed the greatest possible sacrifice for the rest of us and to be what you should be today, which is grateful and thankful and have gratitude in this country. We lack gratitude so much in this nation. It's truly, I think,

the thing that we are in the least supply of as a country. There is no further gratitude in this nation. And if you wish to find gratitude in your heart, do what many families are doing today, which is head to the numerous military cemeteries around this nation, where you will be able to see the headstones of the nearly 3 million Americans who gave their lives so that we could be having this conversation today, so that I can be raising my daughters in peace, and so that you can live in peace also. We want to talk today about the history of Memorial Day. Where does it come from? How did we come upon this day of remembrance? And what does it mean? And we thought we'd present for you a people's history of Memorial Day so that we could just get this day kicked off.

I know there's going to be plenty of barbecues, lots of pool parties, truck sales, furniture sales. You see it on your TV screen, right? What Memorial Day has sort of turned into. It's been Americanized and commercialized as everything does, but we are going to get back to the basics on this show. And again, ladies and gentlemen, we are a patriot channel. We are grateful and have deep abiding gratitude in our country and in those who serve this country. And so please, if you have a member of the armed services that you want for us to recognize or to thank, leave their name in the comment section. Let us know a little bit about them. We want to honor your loved ones too with this show. Originally known as Decoration Day,

Memorial Day originated in the years following the Civil War. Again, over 1 million Americans died in the Civil War. It became a federal holiday in 1971 officially. In 1868, Commander-in-Chief John A. Logan of the Grand Army of the Republic issued General Order 11, designating May 30th as Memorial Day for the purpose of sewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of the comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion and whose bodies now lie almost in every city, village, and hamlet and churchyard in the land. So this was decoration day. Decoration day was to go and to decorate the graves of your fallen comrades in arms in order for them to be remembered. And this is why you see to this very day the decoration of tombstones in our national cemeteries. Flowers, adornments, photos, grieving families. You'll see this

all day today, but you'll also see American flags placed in front of each and every single grave in each and every single solemn resting place. So it continues to this very day as we decorate the in remembrance those who sacrificed all. Everyone rejoiced this last week when Elon Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion, and we thought that maybe he'd be taking that company out of the leftist cesspool and into the land of free speech. But he's not out of the woods yet. You see, Twitter is still platformed on Amazon web servers. Those are the racks and the servers that could pull Twitter offline if they don't like what Elon Musk is doing. You don't think they'll do it? They did the same thing to Parler. They offline the entire platform and crashed it because they didn't like what was happening on it.

This is how evil and how incestuous the left has become with their control of the Internet. It's why we need a new American Internet. It's why we are so thrilled to be partnering with RightForge.com. RightForge.com is the true American Internet and founded on American free speech principles. That's why BennyJohnson.com is hosted by RightForge. RightForge is also bringing back President Trump to the Internet by hosting Truth Social, a new online community for free thinkers and free speech. It's amazing to have a company that is investing in the real wire and infrastructure, the routers, the servers, the racks that make the Internet possible.

And if we don't go down to the very core, we'll never have free speech back. The core of American values is what drives RightForge, and we encourage you to go to the very core, we'll never have free speech back. The core of American values is what drives RightForge. We encourage you to go to RightForge.com. That's RightForge.com and talk to them today about bringing your domain over so you are uncancellable by the left. RightForge.com. The first national celebration of this day, Memorial Day, took place on May 30th, 1868 at Arlington National Cemetery, where both Confederate and Union soldiers were buried. Originally known as Decoration Day, at the turn of the century, it was designated Memorial Day. And in many American towns, this day is celebrated with a parade. Now, what's interesting about Arlington Cemetery is that

Robert E. Lee owned Arlington Cemetery, and they buried the American dead during the Civil War on his property. You know, they essentially confiscated and took his property. You can still go and find remnants of where Robert E. Lee lived and where he had a house and structure there. A bit of a statement by the American Armed Services to a man who was trained by West Point, could have been a commanding general. Lincoln wanted him to be the commanding general of the Union Army, and he said, I will go with my home state of Virginia, famously, and of course, was the key general for the Confederacy. So they took his land and they buried the dead on that land of that great war. Again, a bit out of spite, but who can blame them? The bloodiest engagement, of course, in American history, the Great Civil War, to make this union whole again

and to embody the full encompassing of our founding fathers who stated that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is for all men who are created equal before God. That is the realization of the American promise in the Civil War, and millions of Americans gave their lives for that promise. God bless them. Southern women decorated the graves of soldiers even before the Civil War's end. Records show that in 1865, Mississippi, Virginia, and South Carolina all had precedence for Memorial Day. When a women's memorial association in Columbus, Mississippi, decorated the graves of both Confederate and Union soldiers in 1866. This act of generosity and reconciliation prompted an editorial piece published by Horace Greenlee's New York Tribune, a poem by Francis Miles Finch, The Blue and the Gray, of course, referring to the blue uniforms of the Union and the gray uniforms of

the Confederacy, published in the Atlantic Monthly. The practice of sowing flowers on soldiers' graves soon became popular throughout the reunited nations for healing, for healing of this country and the healing of the North and the South in one union together again. Memorial Day, as Decoration Day gradually became known, originally honored only those who lost their lives while fighting in the Civil War. But during World War I, the United States found itself embroiled in another major conflict, and the holiday evolved to commemorate American military personnel who died in all wars, including World War II, the Vietnam War, the Korean War, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Uniform Monday Holiday Act for decades Memorial Day continued to be observed on May 30th,

and the date General Logan had set for the Decoration Day, General Logan being the Civil War general who began this day and this Memorial holiday. In 1968, Congress passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, which established Memorial Day as the last Monday in May today, in order to create a three-day weekend for federal employees. The change went into effect in 1971. The same law also declared Memorial Day a federal holiday. President Lyndon Johnson proclaimed Waterloo, New York,

as the birthplace of Memorial Day because it began a formal observance in May 5th of 1966, back when they were observing Civil War deaths again, and where this day of remembrance gets its origins. Today, national observance of the holiday takes place at Arlington National Cemetery with the placing of a wreath on the tomb of the unknown soldier and the decoration of each grave with a small American flag. Protocol for flying the American flag on Memorial Day

includes raising it quickly to the top of the pole at sunrise, immediately lowering it to half staff until noon, and displaying it at full staff from noon to sunset. For other guidelines, please see the flag code. If you do have a flag in your yard, we encourage you to follow flag code, especially on this day. If you haven't been to Arlington National Cemetery, you can see images of it on your screen. I encourage you to go. If you are near Washington, D.C., it is the most important place to visit. The monuments for Lincoln, Washington, and Jefferson are stunning. There are beautiful places all around Washington. I lived in Washington, D.C. for 15 years. In spite of what these communists have tried to do to that city,

there still remains gorgeous and truly awe-inspiring monuments laying throughout the city. None is more important than Arlington National Cemetery directly across the Potomac. If you haven't seen the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and watched what happens at the changing of the guard, it will again take your breath away. You will be so in awe of our military and the reverence and you'll see the white headstones clearing across the hillside as far as the eye can see. And in fact, if you wish to see Arlington Cemetery, look out your plane window if you're landing at Reagan National in Washington, D.C.

If you're there on a tourist trip or school trip, no doubt you land at Reagan National and you can see the cemetery laid bare and it just stretches on for miles and miles and miles. There are the soldiers that died in the Revolutionary War in Gettysburg. There are the soldiers who died at Bull Run, who died in the storming of Vicksburg. There are inlaid the soldiers who died on D-Day and the soldiers who died in the Argonne. Those men who stormed the beaches to free an entire continent from radicalized fascism and socialism. Those are the men who bravely sacrificed everything

for the man next to them during Korea and Vietnam, often forgotten wars and wars that have mixed emotions for Americans. Indeed, if you speak to the Vietnam veterans who show up every single year for Rolling Thunder, as they did just this last weekend, we've gone there and covered that before, you'll see precisely the value and the heartache of many of these men. And the wounds are still open to this very day. There you will find the treasured and honored souls who fought in my generation, in technically my generation, Desert Storm, Iraq, Afghanistan, the young men and women that I went to school with, young men and women who I knew,

and who lost their lives in the global war on terror. And you see their headstones, and they're a little bit crisper, and they're a little bit cleaner, and they're younger, and they're newer than some of the older worn headstones, but they are all of the same mold. And they all are of the same beautiful stone that sort of glistens in the sun. And it's like angelic. It shines bright. And there's almost like a sparkle to it, much like these young men and women themselves, their lives, living as angels, guardian angels to protect the rest of us. And so it's fitting that their headstones are those colors and that we decorate them today.

And I just encourage you again, if you wish to have an emotional experience, if you wish, if you have an hour in Washington, D.C., please go to Arlington National Cemetery. See it for yourself. It is the personification of being an American and what this nation means. You will leave with your heart sunken in gratitude beyond measure. Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, if you haven't seen it, go. It will remind you that there is something much greater than the battles of politics that we have to this very day. Everything will begin to seem very small when you're at Arlington National Cemetery. So again, please go. Did you know that not since the pandemic

have stocks slid as much as they slid just last month? Quarterly earnings are abysmal. The economy is shrinking and mortgage rates are going through the roof because the Fed knows that an overheated economy and hyperinflation is going to lead to disaster. And it's already here, ladies and gentlemen. Stagflation and the worst economic climate in many decades is upon us. What are you doing to protect your wealth? In the Johnson family, we're using our friends at Birch Gold. We are buying precious metals and diversifying into something of real value. My wife and I invested for the first time last month and Birch made it so easy. For the first time, we have our future protected by precious metals. We diversified into a tax-sheltered retirement account with gold and it couldn't have been easier. Please text Benny to 989898 to secure

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start protecting your future today with gold. Truck month is on at Chevrolet. Get 0% financing for up to 72 months on a 2025 Silverado 1500 custom blackout or custom trail boss. With custom trail bosses available, class exclusive Duramax 3liter diesel engine and Z71 off-road package with a 2-inch factory suspension lift, you get both on-road confidence and off-road capability. Dirt road ahead? Let's go! Truck month is awesome! Ask your Chevrolet dealer for details. Many veterans of the Vietnam War and relatives and friends of those who fought in that conflict make the pilgrimage over Memorial Day weekend to the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C., where they pay their respects to another generation of fallen soldiers. This is, of course, very difficult to walk through the Vietnam War Memorial during this time

because there are so many personal items. There are so many who are still living today that know that conflict, that have loved ones in that conflict, who perished in that conflict, and the wall just engulfs you as you travel through the Vietnam War Memorial. It just sort of swallows you whole as you sink into the names and the names aren't printed. The names are printed so small and they just engulf you. And the pathway is quite large in front of that memorial and it's just laid bare, laid full with wreaths and with personal totems and memories of these men and these women who died in that conflict. And it is hard to see.

You'll see large men in leather motorcycle jackets with big beards and patches sewn onto those jackets crying at that wall. And it is tough. It is tough, ladies and gentlemen. But it reminds you, it gives you a special gratitude. Again, today's episode is about gratitude. It gives you a special gratitude for what they went through and for the sacrifices that were made to keep us free. Presidents visit Arlington National Cemetery on Memorial Day. This is tradition.

Those presidents often lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Inside of that tomb are soldiers who could not be identified, and so their remains were laying in that tomb, and it is a holy place in this country. You'll see families who are mourning the loss of their loved ones. There's a famous moment where Donald Trump, we don't want to make this overtly political, but Donald Trump was there and seeing the young son of Christian Jacobs. His name is Christian Jacobs. His father, Christopher Jacobs, had lost his life in battle, and he was a Marine, and his son was dressed in his uniform in honor of his father, was grieving, and Donald Trump, as a president should in the most important role of a president, walked over to the boy, hugged him and spent some very moving time with this family. It was, I think, my favorite memory, perhaps from the entire Trump presidency was this, this being the distillation of what a president should and must do as commander in chief for those families who

gave everything. Please watch and remember. On this Memorial Day, I know that everybody is remembering the fallen soldiers who have paid the ultimate price for our country. And it's a country that we all love. Last year, at Arlington Cemetery, I met a young boy named Christian Jacobs. He was special. He was standing fully in a uniform. His father was a great man to him, and he was a great man to me.

And Christian was standing over his father's grave, saluting. It was something I'll never forget. Arlington is a special place and our country is a special place. As Americans we come together to remember our great heroes on this Memorial Day. Thank you. so on this day and as we see on our social media feeds programs like this and photos of families mourning photos of remembrance i saw even Google had a testament to remembrance this morning. Perhaps it's time for us to put aside the petty politics of the day and recognize that there is something much bigger than our current battles and that something is those who sacrificed so that we could even be here in this moment,

live streaming this show, and remembering that America is only one generation away from being plunged into darkness. And it is those mean, rough men who stand guard in the dark, small hours of the night to protect your children, your spouse, your home, your life. The histories of the world has been a history of war and blood and carnage and evil and conquest. And this illusion of peace and prosperity is truly in and of itself an illusion because it is all because of those rough, dark men, soldiers, service members who stood in the gap and said, you will come no farther. You, the forces of evil, whether those forces be imperialism in the Revolutionary War, the War of

1812, whether those forces be the forces of slavery and the enslavement of other human beings in America's tumultuous Civil War, whether those forces be the forces of communism or fascism in the 20th century. Communism and fascism, of course, taking far more people in their own countries than on the battlefields. We discuss this often, that the real killer in these ideologies, these wicked, sick ideologies, the people of China who lost 60 million people under communism. The people of Russia, 20 million of their own people lost under communism to their own party, right? These are evil ideologies and it's time to call them out as the true battle. And this is what we try and talk about on this show.

Because these soldiers, these service members, who lie in hollowed ground underneath those gleaming, beautiful headstones, they didn't fight for communism. And they didn't die for socialism. They died for freedom and eternity of God's design for us as individuals to live free and to have as our pursuits, life, liberty, property, happiness.

They died to protect our last great hope here of Western civilization, of a society that is based on the enlightened principles of Christianity and of Western thought and of all men being created equal. They did not die for communism. They did not die for fascism. They did not die for the erosion of those rights. And so let us take unto ourselves renewed devotion to which these men gave their last full and final testament, to paraphrase Abraham Lincoln. And let us take unto ourselves a devotion to continue to protect those things in this, our Memorial Day.

That would be the most perfect way to remember these men, to continue their fight, to continue their fight, to continue their fight with our lives and to ensure that this nation remains the land of the free and not the land of the enslaved. This is our battle. This is our fight. This is why we remember and this is why we say, thank you.

God bless you. You are in heaven as angels now. You precious few, you great defenders and protectors, you American heroes deserving fully of that title, we honor you and we remember you today. Thank you. My name is Benny Johnson.

This has been The Benny Show. Please remember on this Memorial Day. God bless you. My name is Benny Johnson. This has been The Benny Show. Please remember on this Memorial Day. God bless you. Former MLB All-Star Sean Casey, a.k.a. The Mayor, keeps hitting it out of the park. Take my 30 years of experience. Take the wisdom and knowledge I've learned

from the failures when I got sent down my rookie year. All the injuries I had to overcome. Your mind is the most important tool you have in life. Be relentless. Keep charging. It matters how you talk to yourself, how you look at the world. That the injuries I had to overcome. Your mind is the most important tool you have in life. Be relentless. Keep charging. It matters how you talk to yourself, how you look at the world. That matters. We talk about that. I don't know. I'm fired up. Baseball's back and it's going to be incredible. I love it. The Mayor's Office

with Sean Casey from Believe. Follow and listen on your favorite platform.