To the Village News

I want to thank you for the excellent coverage you provided to our community when the key message of Memorial Day was observed at our local Fallbrook cemetery. This is as it should be for it affords men, women and children a time to be reminded that the blessings of freedom Americans enjoy throughout the world have been paid for by the sacrifice of the lives of millions of men and women who fought and died so that freedom might continue to prosper.

Likewise, thank you for the clear and thorough descriptions you have provided in your pages of the dangers now facing Americans through the teachings of Karl Marx and his disciples who embrace the political governments of Communism.

In closing, as I and millions of Americans have just celebrated America’s official birthday on the Fourth of July or Independence day, I remember learning from my local school book what happened in my hometown of Baltimore during the war of 1812. The British Army and Navy had attacked Baltimore’s Ft. McHenry. The victory of the young American nation over the British so inspired an American witness, Francis Scott Key, that the words he wrote became our National Anthem. We call it “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

As it turns out, only recently, three forgotten verses of the Star Spangled Banner have surfaced.

The third verse is: “Oh thus it be ever when freemen shall stand between their loved homes and the war's desolation! With victory Blest with victory and peace, may the heaven-rescued land praise the power that hath made and preserved us as a nation! Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, and this be our motto ‘In God is our trust’ And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.”

Ron Ritter