Today we observe another Veterans Day, a day to pay respect and gratitude for our nations Veterans, both living and deceased. This day is also the first anniversary of the launch of RochesterConservative.com by Freedom Fighter, phantomlord and I, as a grassroots effort to spread the word that smaller government is good government and self reliance and love of God and Country is still considered a virtue in our great country. We support the troops as well and it’s perfectly OK to express your patriotism here as well as witnessing your faith. This past year has been interesting, to say the least, and I’d like to celebrate our first anniversary by summarizing the issues that we covered and supported.

The second article that was posted here, after the introduction article that’s also used on our “About” page, was a moving tribute to our nation’s veterans, Veteran’s Day Dedication by Dave Jeffers, which started out with the following quote from General Nathaniel Greene:

Permit me, then, to recommend from the sincerity of my heart, ready at all times to bleed in my country’s cause, a declaration of independence; and call upon the world, and the great God who governs it, to witness the necessity, propriety and rectitude thereof…Let us, therefore, act like men inspired with a resolution that nothing but the frowns of Heaven shall conquer us.”

Dave was still in the process of grieving from the loss of his son, Sgt. Eddie Jeffers, who gave his life for us in Iraq in September 2007. It was a12iggymom, who originally posted Eddie’s essay “Hope Rides Alone” on the Democrat and Chronicle Forum. I emailed Dave about the essay and we’ve been friends and brothers in Christ ever since. A few days later, I posted an article on the Veterans Outreach Center and their 35 year selfless legacy of helping veterans and their families. phantomlord wrote a great article on A statistical breakdown of our Presidents, where he wrote “only 3 Presidents out of 42 served no executive role prior to taking office”… Later in November 2007, we wrote about Freedom *of* Religion or Freedom *from* Religion, of the controversy over the prayer offered before the Greece, NY town board meeting. We were then introduced to Seth Swirsky, a successful songwriter, musician and author, with his article, While Bush Fights for America, Democrats Fight Bush a cutting commentary on the bad behavior of certain Democrats in effort to undermine the war effort in Iraq and Afghanistan.

December 2007 started out with an alliance with the website, stopthe aclu.com when Lobo emailed me and asked me to post their blogroll and I replied back with the article, stoptheaclu.com, Companions of the Journey!. Seth Swisky contributed his thoughts on the best qualified Democrat for the Presidency at that time, “And Then, There’s Al Gore“. Little did we know back in December 2007 how things would eventually shake out! The Rev. Dr. Tommy Davis accepted my invitation to post to RochesterConservative.com and contributed his first article, “Affirmative Action That We Need“, about his stand against affirmative action programs and his work as a chaplain that responds to homicide scenes on behalf of local law enforcement agencies and responsibility and accountability for ones own actions as being the key for success in overcoming adversity. The Rev. Davis also penned another great article on the rehabilitation of troubled young people in “Broken Windows and Broken Lives Can be Repaired“. Good friend of RochesterConservative.com, ronbohmw, gave me the heads-up on “One Finger Salute“, about Gunnery Sgt Michael Burghardt’s defiance and “salute” to the terrorists in Iraq. phantomlord had a great commentary about “Diversity” and how “Diversity of meaningless minutia is failure.” phantomlord also penned an article that was prophetic, whether he meant it or not, titled “Democrats, welcome to power“. I posted an article that promoted a William Kristol article about a hero of mine, “Gen. David Petraeus, Man of the Year” and how he should have received the “Time” magazine man of the year award over Vladimir Putin (no sh!t sherlock! ) .

I posted the first article from my good friend, Colonel Harry Riley, titled “Love, Courage, Resolve!” about standing for America, this from a man who’s dedicated his life to serving America, whose message that inspired me to later join with him and Eagles Up in Washington DC in March 2008. Colonel Riley put the call to action out a few days later to counter the Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) Winter Soldier 2 in his article, “Gathering of Eagles, Washington D.C. March 15, 2008” which was later to be renamed, Eagles Muster. Dan Maloney, the NY coordinator of Gathering of Eagles (GOE) contacted me about NY GOE and about all that they’re involved with and also about organizing for the trip to DC on March 15, 2008. Dave Jeffer then wrote about his daughter Tiffany’s tribute to her brother, Eddie Jeffers, with the song “For Freedom” dedicated to Eddie and our other fallen heroes in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, in the video, “Tiffany’s Tribute“. Make sure you have a tissue handy when viewing Tiffany’s moving video. phantomlord ended up the year with some great posts on issues that had been discussed in the Democrat and Chronicle editorial page and on their old Forum, “Time for secession?“, about Upstate and Western New York State seceding from Albany and NYC. PL also had a great post on the D&C Forum that I took the liberty of reposting to RochesterConservative.com and titled, “Phantomlord’s Wisdom, a commentary on conservatism and traditional values, a must read.

The optimism of New Year 2008 started out setting the tone of what was to come for the rest of the year. I posted a David Limbaugh article, “Time to Step Up, Fred. David Limbaugh urges that, “Conservatives need a leader about whom we have no major reservations. The only one looming out there about you is your failure, so far, to persuade voters you want the job.” We then became acquainted with Duane Lester and Andrew Riley of AllAmericanBlogger.com in Duane’s series on the “human induced” global warming hoax, “10 Reasons to Doubt Global Warming is Man-Made (Part 1)” and 10 Reasons to Doubt Global Warming is Man-Made (Part 2)” which made a great case that human induced global warming is in reality, a global socialist movement wealth distribution scheme based on junk science. Then came the cancellation of the major leftist political protest groups to cancel their protests in March, Colonel Riley reporting, “Huge Victories and Colonel Riley’s follow-up article, “A Message from Colonel Riley” to gather a muster of veterans and patriots to stand against IVAW’s Winter Soldier 2 and rally for America!

I reposted phantomlord’s post to the D&C Forum commenting on, “Student poverty up in the suburbs”, a great commentary on the “entitlement” attitude that’s starting to prevail in our society. Our native Rochesterian, Arizona transplant, ronbohmw, contributed an article, “What if 20 Million Illegal Aliens Vacated America?“. Ron experiences our illegal alien problem up close and personal. From Jan. 12, 2008, we have “Fred Won the Debate…But Who Came Out Ahead?“… hindsight is 20/20 folks and the Republicans screwed up by not sticking with Fred! A moment of pride for all of us at RochesterConservative.com came when phantomlord was published by AllAmericanBlogger, “All American Blogger Publishes phantomlord!!!“. I posted an article entitled “Why We Fight” a repost of a Michael Yon article about the little girl that was killed by terrorist insurgents in Iraq. Let’s not forget the video “A Short Course in Brain Surgery” about the failings of socialized medicine in Canada. We then welcomed D&C Forum poster, leavingroch, to RochesterConservative.com, “RochesterConservative.com Welcomes leavingroch!!! and she’s still with us to this day!

Dave Jeffers had a couple of great articles in January 2008, that in retrospect, were about something all of us conservatives struggled with the remaining of the 2008 Presidential election, “Voting on Principle” and “My Dilema about Fred Thompson’s being passed over by the Republican Party for the Presidential nomination. phantomlord had a good historical article on “The leadup to the Vietnam War. leavingroch posted a great analogy on socialism, “How to catch wild pigs. Ricky Bryant Jr., a Gates-Chili graduate, law enforcement officer and veteran was gunned down in cold blood in the line of duty, “In Memory of Ricky Bryant Jr.. I posted an article written by William Greene, “The Lesser of Two Evils” that covered the political issue of, “if my choice for dinner is between a poison that will kill me quickly or a poison that will kill me slowly, “I’ll starve, thank you very much.”! Some regular posters to RochesterConservative.com chose to vote for the lesser of two evils, while other voted with their conscience… we all lost. phantomlord finished off the month of January with the article, “Economics 101, or why socialism is bad, offering some great advice on why we should avoid socialism.

Things got tough for me personally in February 2008 due to the loss of my Dad. I laid low for quite a while and during that time. I did make a commitment to go down to Washington DC and join Colonel Riley, Eagles Up, the DC Chapter of Free Repblic and Gathering of Eagles for Eagles Muster 2008. Here’s a link to my Eagles Muster! RV’s After Action Report. It was a great rally for our brave men and women in the Armed Forces and I even got to march up Constitution Ave! I met many great people, including, Colonel Riley, concretebob, Carter, Mr. and Mrs. Trooprally, Mike Connelly, Kristinn Taylor, Pitbull, Melanie Morgan, Cat Moy, Mary Pearson, Debbie Lee, Skye, Beverly Perlson, Patrick McCarthy, Gunny Hoffa and his wife, and many other great, patriotic folks. I even got to visit the WWII Memorial. My Dad never got a chance to see it before he passed away and I thought of him the whole time I was there.

In March 2008, the Democrat and Chronicle converted their website to the Pluck software package and that included their internet Forum as well. As far as the Forum software, it was a huge step down and limiting to their users. That’s when phantomlord and I decided to provide an alternative to the new “Dark Cide” Forum, by establishing the RC Pirate Forums, that utilized the same phpBB software that the old D&C Forum used, but an updated version that was full-featured, allowing users to post images and videos. Many people came over and joined in on the RC Pirate Forums including, MugsysMom, Charlie, a12iggymom, Annoyed, leavingroch, tired_of_it, cmprostreet, Informed_Roch, creativeogre, SpaceMonkeyZero, Melino, HowardRoarke, rdebose, Spcwright, homesick, HowardRoarke, Crash, rfm and some others. The emphasis shifted to the RC Pirate Forums and it really does offer folks a place to discuss politics, religion, community affairs and just plain old joking around with each other. We’ve had two get togethers and many of us have met in person and established friendships. We also were contacted by Nan Swift of Freedom Works, an organization that advocates for lower taxes, less government and more freedom, who’s chairman is former U.S. House Majority Leader Dick Armey. We also formed an alliance with Newt Gingrich’s American Solutions and are a part of the “Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less” initiative and blogroll.

A presidential campaign has come and gone. Most of us who are conservatives weren’t happy with the choices for president, but the addition of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin rallied most of us to support her and John McCain, but it was not enough and we now have Barack Obama as President-elect. I personally researched Obama on the net and I didn’t like what I found out about the guy. I have great concerns for our country with President Obama at the helm as his upbringing, mentors, supporters and friends are steeped in radicalism, socialism and communism. I can assure you, unless we’re shutdown by Obama’s digital brownshirts, we will be on Obama like a cheap suit! We at RochesterConservative.com will stick to our principles and we promise you that we will continue to spread the word that smaller government is good government and self reliance and love of God and Country is still considered a virtue in our great country. It’s perfectly OK to express your patriotism here as well as witnessing your faith.

Please welcome leavingroch to the RochesterConservative.com authors fold! The Rev. Dr. Tommy Davis, phantomlord and I have participated in Democrat and Chronicle Forum discussions with leavingroch and took notice of her writing. It reflects a conservative common sense that is much needed in this world and this blog!

Welcome to RochesterConservative.com, leavingroch! We’re looking forward to your posts!

(The picture in this post is of a woman soldier of the Revolutionary War. Click here to learn more!)