Our soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen volunteer to protect and defend this country and all its citizens, and do so with honor, integrity and excellence. Our nation continually asks them to do more and more, with less and less.

When you look what is happening in this country with the debt, the deficit, the CBO coming out and saying once again we're going to have a trillion dollar plus deficit in 2012, the fourth straight year, and unemployment may be going back up to 8.9 or maybe nine percent by the end of the year, these are serious situations that are going.

From 1971 onwards, the Memorial Day holiday was officially observed on the last Monday in May and became the unofficial start of the summer, with barbecues, blockbuster movie openings and mattress sales.

For far too long we've allowed the other side to paint us as racist, as sexist, inhumane war mongers - well, today as a conservative black Republican and former soldier, I'm here to set that record straight.

I think we have to understand that when tolerance becomes a one-way street, it will lead to cultural suicide. We should not allow the Muslim Brotherhood or associated groups to be influencing our national security strategy.

The great thing that I appreciate - the fact that my godfather, William 'Sticky' Jackson, was a Tuskegee Airman because my father was first born in Ozark, Alabama. The sacrifices and the commitment of those men made it possible for myself and many others.

I'll give you a great example of an issue that no one brought up during this Florida primary, the fact that we're going to have a Chinese made oil rig put in place about 60 miles off the coast of Florida.