By Todd Starnes
The young men who attend St. John’s Northwestern Military Academy in Wisconsin know the names of the fallen.
Their names are recited every spring – young men, alumni, who gave their lives defending America.
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Jack Albert, the president the military academy, believes the blood shed by his cadets make their campus sacred ground.
So when Albert learned that some of the high schools in their athletic conference were allowing students to disrespect the national anthem, he decided to draw a line in the sand.
“To dishonor those men and their families by permitting any disrespect of the country they defended, especially on the Academy’s time honored fields of friendly strife, is in my opinion, unacceptable,” Albert wrote in a letter to parents and alumni.
“It is our expectation when teams visit our campus, proper etiquette and respect is rendered to the nation’s colors and the national anthem,” he added.
And then – the military academy president dropped the bombshell:
“It is my intention to halt any game with any team whose players or coaches decide to disrespect the colors of our nation or the national anthem of our country in any way,” he informed the Academy family.
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Finally! A school that’s willing to take a stand for the red, white and blue!
“All of our cadets are taught to respect the United States of America,” he said.
Their plan is to immediately halt the game and ask the opposing team to leave the field.
Albert acknowledged that such action would result in a forfeit, but he told me it was the right thing to do.
“To go ahead and let somebody come in here on our sacred ground and denigrate what we are doing — with a clear conscious I could not do that,” Albert told me.
Parents, alumni and cadets overwhelmingly supported the decision.
“I’m not going to destroy what we’ve had in place here for 133 years,” Albert told me. “We have a program here and a standard here. My boys know that if they would do anything that disrespected the flag or anthem they would be dismissed.”
May God bless the good men of St. John’s Northwestern Military Academy. It’s nice to know there are still some young people who respect God and Country.
