Posted by Jim Barnes (75.62.109.75) on July 04, 2010 at 14:36:46:
I’m hoping that Jonathon Finer is having a good day on this Fourth of July. Jonathon, son of airtanker pilot Bob Finer is serving in Afghanistan on his third tour of duty. I hope that on this Fourth of July everyone will join me to pray for Jonathon to accomplish his mission and return home safely to his friends and family.
Jonathon’s bravery and dedication to duty exemplifies what it truly means to be an American hero. Jonathon has chosen a life of great sacrifice and great loss to stop an enemy dedicated to the destruction of America and individual freedom.
Somehow the ideal of what America could and should be has become clouded during the last two generations. We failed to communicate to our children that America is still the last beacon of hope for free peoples the world over. I’ve heard it said by those posted in the academia that one man’s freedom is another man’s misery. But history has shown that one man’s freedom denied becomes the world’s misery.
Jonathon is one of our own and he has put himself in harms way for the third time on a very difficult and dangerous mission to fight for those treasured ideals that America stands for.
I know that this post isn’t related directly to aerial firefighting but Jonathon Finer is a treasured part of our family of aerial firefighters. He is in great danger and he is in my thoughts today.
Jonathon and young people like him give me hope that America and the freedom we celebrate this day will yet prevail.
May God Bless and protect Jonathon Finer. Amen.
Jim Barnes