I’ve been a patriot all my life.
I was born and partly raised in Carl Ross Holler, in Williamson, West Virginia. My family was dirt-poor, with seven surviving kids and both parents with less than eight years of schooling. So every chance my folks got, we kids would be sent off to relatives or any place they could find.
Around 1945 a Christian charity picked up me and my brother Bill and took us to a Christian camp for a week of fun and exposure to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I gave my heart to Jesus at that camp, but was too afraid to tell anyone at the time. I was seven years old.
Back then, I didn’t know much about God. My family never went to church, and religion was never discussed in our immediate family. The camp experience helped me come to know that I was a sinner and needed Jesus Christ in my life.
Fresh-Aire Camp and my grandmother pointed me to God’s eternal truths. Had it not been for camp and my granny Laurie Farley, I would likely be a non-believer today. Granny saved my physical life and sowed the seeds that would eventually save my eternal soul.
During World War II, I can remember watching newsreels at the Sunday movies about our guys saving America by fighting the “Krauts” and the “Japs,” as they were known.
My heart was full of pride in our guys, but I can remember seeing some of them return with missing arms and legs, which filled me with anger for our enemies. I vowed to take our men’s places as soon as I was old enough to go.
In our schools, back in those days, we pledged our allegiance to the American flag: “…and to the Republic for which it stands…” We sang patriotic songs and learned how much our forefathers sacrificed to give us this marvelous experiment we call America. Sure, America made mistakes. We were led by people, after all. But we always did the right thing, in the end.
After the war, we gave countries back to their peoples when we could have kept them as American territories. Not only that, but we rebuilt our enemies’ countries. We gave them the best of everything we had. We gave Japan our very best technology. We built better steel mills there than we had here.
Over the next 30 years or so after Fresh-Aire Camp, I was drawn away from Christ by moving a total of eleven times before I joined the Navy. Four years of service and ten years of college night-school left me far from God and downright agnostic/atheistic in my beliefs. Around 1977 God rescued me and gave me a new start.
At 17 I quit high school and joined the Navy. I missed Korea by ten months and was married with a child by the time Vietnam came around, so I missed that war too.
However, I did my duty for my country from December 1955 to December 1959 and, by God’s grace, saw no action in battle.
It was around the mid-1960s when I began to see a big change in America. We were being split asunder by unseen forces, and our government was being sullied by low-class politicians. I’m sure it began long before, but our ugly national underbelly had not yet been exposed to the average American.
Before the '60s there were plenty of statesmen who gave their lives in politics to keep the American Dream alive, and I don’t mean a house and a car for everyone. That’s not the real American Dream.
I mean the dream that freedom could survive, that our republic could survive, and we could be that shining city on a hill that Reagan talked so much about. The dream that America is a place to give the downtrodden peoples of the world hope. I suspect there are still some politicians who desire to carry on that heritage, but things began to change radically in the '60s.
That is where my Convention of States story really begins. Over the years I watched painfully as our government sank lower and lower from selfless altruism to selfish ambition.
My heart sank, and I doubted that we could ever regain our greatness, or even survive as a country.
There seemed to be no way of rescuing this mighty ship of state we call America, until 2013, when I heard Mark Meckler speak at a Tea Party in the Hills meeting in Placerville, California.
At first the idea of a convention to revise our Constitution was a scary thought to me, and I rejected the idea. However, the last five years has seen our country slide toward a place of no return, and I am now completely convinced that our COS movement is the last hope for America.
The most beautiful part is that I am able to participate in “the only answer as big as the problem.” I get to serve my country, as I have always wanted to do, through this grassroots movement.
Over the last 41 years, I've come to know that God was totally behind bringing America into being, from Christopher Columbus until today, and that God has kept this country intact for 242 years.
Many confused and ignorant politicians have come to power over the years, attempting to reduce God's country to average status, which is needed by them in order to force America to join the world as equals in a one-world government.
Without We the People reclaiming our power through Convention of States, that's exactly what will happen. I believe COS is the only thing standing between a sovereign America and a one-world government.
Only God can save America, and only the prayers of His people will convince Him to do so (II Chron. 7:14). God is the power, while His people can be His motivation. That leaves COS as His method for saving America!
That’s my my Convention of States story!
