For many Americans, Memorial Day is nothing more than a welcome day off of work to kick back and relax and maybe host a backyard barbeque.
But the true meaning of this holiday should stir deep gratitude and empathy in every American citizen. Memorial Day is set aside not for leisure but for reverence. It is about honoring and remembering the men and women of the armed forces who died while serving in the military.
Two years ago, Glenn Beck delivered an unforgettable message that is worth revisiting on this important day.
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Glenn starts by telling a common story that only the parents of fallen soldiers will truly understand.
“If you will, try to imagine this in the first person, through the eyes of someone I'm about to describe,” he begins.
“Your son has been in the United States Marine Corps for what seems like forever now. … What begins as extreme worry and then turns to panic, then helplessness, then all time seems to stop. It's as if you're stranded in the loneliest cold of winter, with no daylight to help tell you the passage of time. It's just you, your worry, and no end in sight,” he narrates.
Unbeknownst to you, your beloved son suddenly falls in combat. This immediately sets a precise military protocol in motion.
“This is what's happening behind the scenes,” says Glenn. “First a death notification. It has to be executed within eight hours. A discreet attempt to locate you, the next of kin, is initiated so the officers chosen to deliver the notification arrive at the right place at the right time.”
“Three individuals are typically chosen to arrive at your home: an officer at least one rank higher than the deceased, a chaplain, and someone capable of delivering medical help should the next of kin pass out or worse,” he continues.
The parent, already sensing the gut-wrenching news, listens in horror as the officer delivers the following message: “The commandant of the Marine Corps has entrusted me to express his deep regret that your son John was killed in action on Friday, March 26. The commandant and the Marine Corps extend their deepest sympathy to you and your family in your loss.”
“This is the nightmare that thousands have had to endure, thousands fear could happen to them at any time,” says Glenn.
“312 parents experienced what I just described in 2003 alone; in 2007, 847 military men and women died in combat; in 2008, 352; in 2009, 346 — and the list and the numbers go on and on,” he recounts.
This Memorial Day, as we gather with friends and family, Glenn hopes that we will take time to remember the true meaning of this somber holiday.
“I'm not trying to be a downer here, but there is a sacredness to Memorial Day that most of us just cannot understand,” he says.
Glenn concludes by reading John 15:13: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”
“This weekend, remember the honor, the love of country, the families. Together they represent the absolute best of all of us.”
To hear Glenn deliver this touching monologue, watch the video above.
To enjoy more of Glenn’s masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis, and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.
A Senate Armed Services subcommittee hearing regarding the readiness of the U.S. military was interrupted on Wednesday by a bone-breaking scuffle.
Brian McGinnis, a Marine veteran and firefighter who is running as a Green Party candidate to represent North Carolina in the U.S. Senate, noted in a video taken before the hearing that he intended to ask lawmakers "why they're going to send our men and women to harm's way when our elected officials said that there would be no world war."
Wearing his Marine Corps dress uniform, McGinnis interrupted the hearing with a condemnation of America's involvement in Iran, shouting, "No one wants to fight for Israel," and, "Stand up for America."
'This gentleman came to the Capitol looking for a confrontation, and he got one.'
The Capitol Police said in a statement obtained by the Daily Montanan, "This afternoon, an unruly man who started to illegally protest during a hearing, put everyone in a dangerous position by violently resisting and fighting our officer’s attempts to remove him from the room."
In footage captured by CBS News' Alan He, multiple USCP officers can be seen forcefully ejecting McGinnis from the room with the help of Montana Sen. Tim Sheehy (R), who can be seen grabbing McGinnis' leg and trying to pull him out the door.
Sen. Sheehy, a decorated Navy SEAL veteran who partook in numerous combat deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq, said in a statement, "Capitol Police were attempting to remove an unhinged protestor from the Armed Services hearing. He was fighting back. I decided to help out and deescalate the situation."
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Footage of the struggle published by Code Pink, a leftist anti-war group co-founded by former Democratic political activist Jodie Evans, shows McGinnis insert his arm through one doorway while the rest of his person is being forced through an adjacent doorway.
Sheehy can be seen wrapping his arm around McGinnis' shoulder in an apparent effort to free the protester's arm — now trapped by the closing second door — while the officers tug at the protester's legs.
A loud snap can be heard, prompting an onlooker to yell, "His hand! His hand!" and another individual off-screen to utter, "Oh my God."
Amid groans from onlookers, a man off-screen yells, "The senator broke his hand! A sitting U.S. senator just broke the hand of a Marine."
Upon realizing that McGinnis' arm was indeed stuck, the officers momentarily stopped pulling to help Sheehy dislodge the broken limb.
When asked whether his hand was OK, McGinnis said, "No, it's not." He later noted on X that his arm was broken.
While being escorted out of the building, McGinnis — who married a Palestinian and volunteered in 2024 for the pro-Palestinian "Freedom Flotilla Coalition" — shouted, "Free Palestine! From the Halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli, Palestine will be free!"
The USCP confirmed that the protester was treated for an injury and now faces three counts of assaulting a police officer and three counts of "resisting arrest and crowding, obstructing, and incommoding for the unlawful demonstration."
Sheehy noted on X, "This gentleman came to the Capitol looking for a confrontation, and he got one. I hope he gets the help he needs without causing further violence."
Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!Camp Lejeune was a Marine Corps base in North Carolina where Virginia Robinson dedicated 25 years of her life to working and raising her family — unaware that they were drinking, bathing, and living with poisoned water the entire time.
But the government knew, and despite the sickness that plagued the inhabitants, they never told them.
“I had three cancers I was fighting at one time,” Robinson tells BlazeTV host Nicole Shanahan on “Back to the People.”
Robinson not only had three cancers at the same time, but she also survived leukemia, colon cancer while pregnant, and two separate diagnoses of breast cancer. And she wasn’t the only one in her family affected.
Her husband passed away in 2014, her daughter followed shortly after, and her father was diagnosed with Parkinson’s. Another daughter of hers was born with a spinal tumor and died young from bladder cancer.
All of them were exposed to Camp Lejeune’s water.
“What kind of levels of toxicity were in the water? Was it trace amounts or were there periods where there were large dumps and increases of contamination?” Shanahan asks.
“There was dumping involved, because there’s some videos. I don’t know where they’re at. My brother told me about them because he’s been doing a lot of research about this, and he said there was sites where there was trucks going on base and dumping from the laundromat,” Robinson explains.
“We’re talking about levels, Nicole, that are 10 times, 30 times, 50 times, 150 times EPA limits. We’re not talking about trace amounts of these chemicals. We’re talking about, as you would expect, the kind of amounts that are causing way elevated risks of a whole host of conditions,” she continues.
And unfortunately, when Robinson has gone to the government for help, it has turned her away.
“I have no doubt that they caused your cancer, your pain and suffering, the deaths, just horrific lives, right? Because they’ve done it to millions of Americans through faulty vaccines,” Shanahan says, adding, “I don’t know if there is justice in this country or we have a real justice system.”
To enjoy more of Nicole's compelling blend of empathy, curiosity, and enlightenment, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.
Several U.S. military recruiting offices are communicating through a Chinese Communist Party-monitored messaging application as they seek to target Chinese nationals interested in enlisting, fueling concerns about potential national security risks.
After looking into a Department of Justice affidavit filed in June, Blaze News has discovered that some recruiters have been using WeChat. The court document claimed that the U.S. Navy Recruiting Station Alhambra in San Gabriel, California, had a bulletin board displaying recent recruits, the majority of whom identified their "hometown" as "China."
'China is our nation's greatest hegemonic adversary.'
The DOJ's criminal complaint was filed against two Chinese nationals who have been accused of taking photographs of the bulletin board and sending them to an officer with the CCP's Ministry of State Security.
The foreign adversary hometown designations spark serious concerns that individuals with divided loyalties and even potential CCP operatives have infiltrated the U.S. military.
While U.S. citizenship is required for officer and security clearance positions, noncitizens who are lawful permanent residents can enlist in the military. LPRs are generally eligible to naturalize after five years of continuous U.S. residence, and service members may qualify for expedited naturalization.
As of February 2024, roughly 40,000 foreign nationals were serving in the U.S. military. According to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services' reporting, China ranks among the top 10 countries of birth for U.S. service members who have become naturalized citizens through the military. Just over 2,000 Chinese nationals were approved for military naturalizations from fiscal years 2020 through 2024.
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Dr. Lawrence Sellin, a retired U.S. Army Reserve colonel and biological and chemical warfare defense expert, told Blaze News, "Infiltration of the U.S. military is a major goal of the Chinese Communist Party."
"It is accomplished via Chinese immigrants to the United States who become permanent residents or U.S. citizens but remain loyal to the CCP, either directly by the Chinese immigrants themselves or their pro-CCP children," he explained. "In fact, pro-CCP Chinese-American organizations are promoting such recruitment, facilitating CCP infiltration of the U.S. military."
Gordon Chang, a Gatestone Institute senior fellow, similarly warned that China has "weaponized its nationals."
He said in a comment to Blaze News, "China's National Intelligence Law of 2017 requires Chinese nationals and entities to spy if relevant authorities make demands."
"Moreover, in the Communist Party's top-down system, no person can disobey an order from the Party. Additionally, the regime coerces all ethnic Chinese, regardless of nationality, to do its bidding by threatening harm to loved ones and relatives in China," Chang stated. "Therefore, ethnic Chinese pose a special risk of espionage and sabotage to the U.S. military. Except under special circumstances, the U.S. military should not accept recruits who are Chinese nationals."
Lily Tang Williams, a Republican congressional candidate in New Hampshire and a survivor of Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution, also argued against allowing foreign nationals from adversarial countries, including China, to enlist in the U.S. military.
Tang Williams told Blaze News, "China is our nation's greatest hegemonic adversary. They have made it very clear that they are seeking to usurp the United States' position in the world by taking advantage of our open society and using their nationals and businesses to spread their influence, doing military and economic espionage. The 'China Dream' is Xi Jinping's 'Soft Power Invasion' slogan to enable China overtaking the U.S. as the dominant number one global power by 2049."
The troubling information that emerged from the DOJ affidavit led to further concerning revelations.
Journalist Jennifer Zeng uncovered another alarming detail about the Navy recruiting office in San Gabriel. She discovered that a suspected Chinese influencer had filmed a tour of the facility, which was later posted online as an apparent advertisement aimed at Chinese nationals.
The original video, posted to YouTube with nearly 25,000 views, is entirely in Chinese. The video shooter, "Rocky," joins EN2 Qlang Wang on his commute to work. He then interviews several suspected Chinese nationals as they go through the recruiting process at the office.
One recruit tells Rocky that he is 37 years old, has been residing in the U.S. for six years, and that he wants to join the Navy because it is "a chance for new opportunities [and] life experience," according to Zeng's translation of the video. Two additional recruits similarly attribute their decision to join the U.S. military to its opportunities.
The recruitment video concludes by listing WeChat as the first way to contact Zhong Yang, a presumed recruiter at the office. Initially, the video's YouTube description also highlighted WeChat as the main contact option, but that information was later removed, according to Zeng.
A Navy spokesperson confirmed to Blaze News that Wang and Yang are in the Navy, though declined to comment further.
‘Given that the CCP views the US as its No. 1 enemy and has actively infiltrated and spied on the US military, it's hard to believe that the US Navy would tolerate such a massive national security risk.’
Zeng wrote in a post on X, "EVERY recruiter here is Chinese, as well as all the people coming to enlist. The working language here is also Chinese."
Following her discovery of the Chinese-language tour video, Zeng posted her own videos from outside the U.S. Navy Recruiting Alhambra office and the neighboring Marine Corps Recruiting Station that showed bulletins taped to the windows.
The flyers were written in Chinese, featuring the U.S. Marine Corps seal, contact information for "Sgt Liu," and a QR code linking to Liu's WeChat.
"Joining the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve does not force you to become a citizen; you can maintain your permanent green card status," one of the flyers read, according to Zeng's translation. "Fast track to citizenship is also an option."
A spokesperson with the Marine Corps told Blaze News that the flyers had been removed.
"In December 2024, materials featuring a QR code linking to a personal WeChat account were displayed at a Marine Corps facility in San Gabriel, California. WeChat is not an authorized platform for official use, and the materials were promptly removed following review," the spokesperson stated.
When asked about the screening processes for U.S. citizens versus green card holders, particularly those from adversarial nations, the Marines said, "All applicants, whether naturalized or birthright U.S. citizens, undergo the same screening process. Additional vetting is conducted for individuals with ties to countries designated as potential security concerns."
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Zeng told Blaze News that she was "truly shocked" that military recruiters were using WeChat for recruiting purposes.
"Virtually all Chinese dissidents — and many ordinary Chinese people — know that WeChat is 100% owned and monitored by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). There are numerous documented cases of the CCP using WeChat to surveil and persecute Chinese citizens," Zeng said.
"Given that the CCP views the U.S. as its No. 1 enemy and has actively infiltrated and spied on the U.S. military, it's hard to believe that the U.S. Navy would tolerate such a massive national security risk," she continued. "I sincerely hope the growing number of cases involving CCP agents stealing U.S. military secrets will serve as a wake-up call — and that the U.S. military and Navy will address this issue urgently."
Zeng explained that after she posted her findings on social media, some of her followers informed her that another recruiting office in New York was similarly advertising with flyers written in Chinese.
Blaze News confirmed those claims.
A U.S. Army Recruiting Office in Flushing, New York, advertised reaching out via WeChat to contact the office's recruiter in two posts on Google Maps.
Additionally, another U.S. Army Recruiting Office in Rowland Heights, California, similarly posted on Google Maps in Chinese, listing the recruiter's contact information, including a WeChat account.
USCIS spokesman Matthew J. Tragesser told Blaze News, “USCIS’s first priority is rooting out malicious actors who seek to take advantage of our lawful immigration system, whether for their own enrichment or to attack and undermine our nation. Our agency was born out of the horror of Sept. 11, 2001, and every American counts on us to detect and stop threats to our country. Individuals from high-risk countries, or countries with known anti-American governments, may face enhanced measures to protect American interests.”
“USCIS screens all applicants for immigration benefits — regardless of military status. USCIS maintains the integrity in the U.S. immigration system through enhanced screening and vetting to deter, detect, and disrupt immigration fraud and threats to our national security and public safety,” Tragesser added.
When reached for comment, the White House directed Blaze News to the Department of Defense, stating that the department was looking into the allegations regarding WeChat. The DOD, in turn, referred the matter to the individual branches involved. Neither the U.S. Army nor any of the recruiters listed in the advertisements responded to a request for comment.
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Your son has been a Marine for what feels like an eternity. Only those who have watched their children deploy into war zones can truly understand why time seems to freeze in worry. What begins as concern turns to panic, then helplessness. You live suspended in a silent winter, where days blur and dread becomes your constant companion.
Then, in an instant, it happens. What you don’t know yet is that your child — your most precious gift — fell in combat 60 seconds ago.
This is a day for sacred remembrance, for honoring those who laid down their lives.
While you go about your day, unaware, military protocol kicks into motion. Notification must happen within eight hours. Officers are dispatched. A chaplain joins them. A medic may accompany them in case the grief is too much to bear.
Three figures arrive at your door. One asks your name. Then, by protocol, they ask to enter your home. You already know what’s coming. You sit down. He looks you in the eye and says:
The commandant of the Marine Corps has entrusted me to express his deep regret that your son John was killed in action on Friday, March 28. The commandant and the United States Marine Corps extend their deepest sympathy to you and your family in your loss.
This moment has played out thousands of times across American soil. In 2003 alone — just two years after 9/11 — 312 families endured it. In 2007, 847 American service members died in combat. In 2008, 352. In 2009, 346. The list goes on. And with every name, a family became a Gold Star family.
For most Americans, Memorial Day means backyard barbecues, family gatherings, maybe a trip to the lake or a sweet Airbnb. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying these things. But we must never forget why we can.
Ask any veteran who lived when others did not, and you’ll understand: Memorial Day is not just another holiday. It is a solemn day set apart for reverence.
So this weekend, reach out to a Gold Star family. Acknowledge their pain. Ask about their son or daughter. Let them know they’re not alone.
This is a day for sacred remembrance, for honoring those who laid down their lives — not for accolades but for love of country and the preservation of liberty. “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).
They died for the Constitution, for our shared American ideals, and the worst thing we could do now would be to betray those ideals in a spirit of rage or division.
We cannot dishonor their sacrifice by abandoning the very principles they died to protect — equal justice, the rule of law, the enduring promise of liberty.
This Memorial Day, let us remember the fallen. Let us honor their families. Let us recommit ourselves to the cause they gave everything for: the American way of life.
They are the best of us.
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