This week we honor those who died, but especially to honor the fallen.

It is fitting that we remember.

I have traveled the world round and round. The thing that strikes me most in my many wanderings is how truly blessed we are to be American.

Americans live in a land of plenty. Our lives are peaceful and we enjoy the blessings of liberty. Yet very few of us have any idea how uncommon our blessings are.

Democracy is fragile – freedom is rare – despots and dictatorships are the tendency of man. Most of the world – even today – lives under the boot of tyranny. China, far from becoming more democratic, is actually more autocratic than before. So is Russia, North Korea, Iran, Syria, and most of the Islamic extremists who are trying to create a new caliphate. The vast majority of people who have ever lived on this planet lived in want and tyranny. In fact, if you added up all the billions of people who have ever lived, less than 2 percent of humanity has ever known freedom. Never mind the “1 percent” that many malign; each and every American is the luckiest 2 percent of humanity.

Worse, almost every country has been conquered at one time or another. Almost every nation knows the horrors of suffering under a foreign master. Thanks to the American veteran, we have never been conquered. In fact, since the end of World War II, our country has basked in a time of blessings that is now referred to as “Pax Americana.” Thanks to the “greatest generation,” we’ve enjoyed 75 years of stability similar to the historic eras of “Pax Romana” and “Pax Britannica.” We’ve had small wars, of course. We mourn every soldier that fell in those wars; each honored, hallowed and precious. But the true victory of those brave fallen can be measured by how very few we lost.

It is almost incomprehensible, but the 20th Century was by far the bloodiest in all of history. 16 million people died in World War I, 60 million fell in World War II, Stalin murdered 20 million his own citizens and Mao murdered another 65 million. Compared to these epic figures, the 100,000 Americans we’ve lost since World War II is blessedly low.

What did our veterans win? They won the rights of minorities, the rights of women, your religious freedom, and your right to vote. They ended Nazism and crushed Communism. They defended Capitalism, the economic engine that doubled the prosperity of everyone on the planet, and defended racial tolerance for most of the people on the planet. But most important; they purchased lasting peace for you and me.

As a Navy and Air Force pilot stationed overseas, I often felt the pang of loneliness, wondering why I was fighting in distant jungles and deserts. The reason is quite simple: Americans fight on other’s shores so that aggressors don’t fight in America.

In a perfect world, there’d be no war. But there will always be men who want what other men have. To think otherwise is to ignore all of history. “In a world where the lion lies down with the sheep,” said Texas Sen. Phil Graham. “It is important that America remains the lion.” The American soldier is the grantor of peace, not only for our own citizens, but of the entire world.

Theodoric the Goth – the barbarian who extinguished the Roman Empire – famously remarked, “Every Goth wants to be a Roman; no Roman wants to be a Goth.” The quote is ironic in many ways, but mostly because even he – the pitiless destroyer responsible for the murder of hundreds of thousands – understood what he had destroyed…and rued what had been lost.

The Romans were far from perfect. But the collapse of their civilization – who had once enjoyed a “Pax Romana” of their own – ushered in a thousand years of misery we now know as the Dark Ages. If the American soldier were ever to fail, the globe would collapse into a ruthless period of ruin, anarchy, and poverty.

Remember,

“It’s the VETERAN, not the preacher, who gives you freedom of religion.

It’s the VETERAN, not the reporter, who gives you freedom of the press.

It’s the VETERAN, not the poet, who gives you freedom of speech.

It’s the VETERAN, not the politician, who gives you the right to vote.”

Our flag still waves ore the land of the free, because of the sacrifices of our brave.

It is fitting that we remember.

Belton is a Republican from District 112, serving in the Georgia House of Representatives.