During our July Fourth celebration, we should appreciate the blessings of this "nation under God." The Founding Fathers recorded their feelings of inspiration and their belief that God did intervene on our behalf repeatedly that we might be free.

And one of the greatest freedoms sought by early Americans was to worship God the way they desired.

We should remember those who have helped preserve our freedoms. Many whose bodies were never injured on the battlefield came home with emotional wounds from which they never fully heal.

Journalist Rick Atkinson describes one such soldier:

"They found Stan Moody costumed for his private war in fatigues and combat boots, his face and forearms smeared with … camouflage paint. An old American flag was draped around his neck. …

"More than 100 spent shell casings littered the ground on the nameless hill with its flagless flagpole where the 38-year-old veteran fought a final night battle against an imaginary enemy…

"Along with his arsenal - a 12-gauge shotgun, a .30-caliber Remington rifle, a Soviet AK-47, half a dozen bayonets and a .38-caliber Colt pistol with which he killed himself to avoid capture by the phantom Viet Cong - investigators found two stanzas from 'The Battle Hymn of the Republic.'

"Seven years, five months and 19 days after the last American battlefield fatality in Vietnam, former Staff Sgt. Stanley Erwin Moody died for his country."

How we should thank God for all those who have helped achieve and preserve our blessings of freedom.

We should also appreciate the other blessings the God of our Fathers has given us. All too often we, whose families have lived here many generations, take these blessings for granted. Those who migrate to America do not.

Pan Minh Loi was a Vietnamese "boat person" who suffered from piracy and shipwreck with his family before making his way to a refugee camp.

The camp director accepted U.S. aid to line his own pockets but failed to feed the refugees. Pan Minh Loi, his wife and his child survived on whatever weeds, insects, rodents or reptiles they could find in the camp.

Pan Minh Loi wrote repeatedly to his sister in America for help but received no response. His sister had sent reassuring letters, but the camp director also did not deliver mail.

Finally Pan Minh Loi wrote one last letter to his sister, which said, in essence: "I have written to you several times but have received no response. In case you receive this last letter, I wanted you to understand what I am about to do. I cannot bear to watch my wife and child slowly starve to death, so I am going to kill them and then kill myself. I hope you will understand."

When she received the letter, the terrified sister abandoned the red taped legal system and contacted columnist Jack Anderson, who used the power of his 900 subscribing newspapers to rescue Pan Minh Loi.

One of Jack's associates accompanied the sister and Pan Minh Loi to the family's new home - the most delapidated second-hand trailer in the dustiest desert trailer park in southern Utah. You wouldn't want to live there. But as Pan Minh Loi got out of the van and saw his new home, he leaped into the air with his fists clenched like a football player who had just caught the winning touchdown in the Super Bowl, and he shouted at the top of his voice: "America! America!"

How we should remember that of all people anywhere in the world who have ever lived on this earth, we are the most blessed of all.