"Freedom is never fully won. It is merely handed, intact, from one generation to the next"
Roanoke Patriotic Concert Remarks on July 3, 2008
In early July 1776, our second president called on his countrymen to do exactly what we are doing at the Roanoke Patriotic Concert. John Adams wrote to his wife, Abigail, of the day on which the Second Continental Congress adopted a resolution declaring independence from the most powerful nation on earth. He wrote that Independence Day “will be celebrated by succeeding generations as a great anniversary festival” adding, “It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, 
bonfires and illuminations from one end of the Continent to the other from this time forward forever more.”
And so we gather here in Northeastern Indiana, some 232 years later, to continue to fulfill that charge. To mark the day when 56 men signed a document that ‘dissolved the political bands’ that bound them to Great Britain.
The thing about history is, because we know what’s in the next chapter of the book, we subliminally think that the people who lived it knew it as well. And nothing could be further from the truth of those days.
In fact, at the time of our first Independence Day, fully 50,000 battle hardened British soldiers were moored in New York City harbor waiting for the signal to come ashore and crush the rebellion. Recall that the largest city in colonial America was Philadelphia. The population of Philadelphia was roughly the same as the British force.
With an armada the size of America’s largest city waiting to come ashore with orders to hang any person who affixed their name to a resolution declaring independence from 
Great Britain, they signed. I often as 8th graders on tours of the U.S. Capitol, “would you have signed?”.
When our founders pledged “their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor”, it was not a poetic close to a legislative document. The majority of the prominent men who signed the resolution would either be dead before the war was ended or would die in poverty.
John Adams knew of the difficulties that lay ahead as he pressed the cause for independence. He wrote his wife, “I am well aware of the toil and blood and treasure that it will cost us to maintain this declaration and support and defend these states.” “Yet”, he added, “through all the gloom I can see the rays of ravishing light and glory. I can see that posterity will triumph in that day’s transaction”.
So we gather and we celebrate and we remember. And it is altogether fitting that we do so. We remember the generation of Americans who, like Adams, won our freedom by their insistent vision and courage in battle.
But I suspect our second president would be the first to acknowledge that it is also proper to acknowledge the heroes of subsequent American wars, like those honored heroes who join me on the stage tonight.
They, like Adams, know better than most that freedom is never fully won. It is merely handed, intact, from one generation to the next.
And as we celebrate the freedom that heroes of conflicts past have wrought for us, let us also remember those who lie in barracks and canvas tents in places like Ramadi and Balad and Baghdad and Kabul. There, at this hour, in the middle of the night they may be thinking of us tonight and giving no thought to the fact that their separation and sacrifice is exactly that which makes possible the freedom and sweetness of this quaint Indiana evening.
And was we remember heroes past and present, allow me to recall on this Independence Day one more Hoosier, emblematic of so many who have given “the last full measure of devotion”.
Lcpl. Andrew Whitacre came home to Portland, Indiana one week ago today. Driving through streets lined with American flags, friends, family and complete strangers, this son of Bryant, Indiana came home one last time.
From the time he was a little boy, he loved playing war around the house and, as his mother told me last week, “he always wanted to be the good guy.” And he was.
After the attack on this nation on September 11th, Andrew Whitacre tried to join the Marine Corp even though he was only 16. He would eventually follow his father into the Corp and served with distinction in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Through a veil of tears that was universal, his brave fiancée Casey told a gymnasium filled to capacity last Friday, “this wasn’t the homecoming we were planning”.
Lcpl. Andrew Whitacre fell in Afghanistan on 19 June 2008 and we are right to remember him tonight as well.
But to do so, I would rather not offer you words of my own but his as a means of bringing home the price of freedom and the meaning of this day.
Before deploying to Afghanistan, Lcpl. Andrew Whitacre wrote these words and with these words I close:
“Well, the time has come again. Yes, the lovely United States Marine Corp. has decided that my services are needed in a far away land. And I have been given the chance to change the lives of people in not only a city but a different country. How lucky am I? This time I will be working in Southern Afghanistan, a country that has seen more fighting than any other I can think of. But the country itself is quite amazing. Unlike the flat terrain wasteland I was in last time, this place has some character to it, which is nice until you are climbing 6,000 feet with full gear. ….
I just wanted to write to let everyone know that all is well on the front lines. It will be a long, hard summer, but I know that once again with the support of family and friends we will pull through. I want to take a second and thank all of you who support us in what we do. I know many of you do not believe in the wars we are fighting in.
Just remember that all the men and women who are here-are here because at one point they took an oath to protect and serve YOU. The support of the citizens of the country we fight and die for is all that we ask. We don’t need, nor want to be treated like heroes, although I have seen many young men who are worthy of that title. All we need is to know that we have not been forgotten.”…
Thank you all for your time and thoughts.
God bless all of you.
Lcpl Andrew Whitacre
47 G Co. 2nd Pit. WPDS
Let us be faithful to Andrew’s charge. Let us never forget those who have defended our freedom these past 232 years. Let us remember our founding fathers, heroes of wars past, heroes of wars present and let us remember Andrew Whitacre and every man, woman and family who have laid so precious a sacrifice on the altar of freedom.
Freedom is never fully won. It is merely handed, intact, from one generation to the next.
They did their part. Let’s do ours.
Happy Independence Day.
Mike Pence
July 4, 2008
