Bill Dillon
Florida Editor

I became a Conservative Republican as a young 2nd Lieutenant in Summer 1964 when Senator Goldwater visited our base, Kingsley Field Oregon on his bid for President. Over the years, I have concluded that political course is the best one to preserve our liberty under the Constitution.

I had started my 30 Air Force Career as an Airman Basic in January 1955 and retired as a Lt Colonel Aircraft Maintenance Officer at Ramstein AB, Germany. My wife, Colonel Wing S. Ng-Dillon remained there in the Air Force as a Pediatrician.

My wife is a Chinese refugee from Canton who got her MD in Taiwan National Univ and did her intern and residency in Savannah then Jacksonville. She firmly believes that America's very existence rescued her family from the Red Army. America kept liberty alive in an age of social dictatorships.

Imagine the surprise of the Jacksonville Air Force recruiter when she walked into his office to sign-up. Docs are tough to come by. She volunteered to help repay America for its gift of liberty.

In 1985, we were in Berlin. It was our first time. On an observation platform overlooking "The Wall", I was struck with the marked difference between the lively activity of the West and the dead drab of the East. The two sides were separated by parallel walls, barbed wire, a minefield and freshly plowed ground to detect any footfalls of people fleeing to freedom.

I was holding my wife's hand as I exclaimed, "This is incredible." She gently squeezed my hand and said, "Now, you know."

Indeed, I did. The difference between liberty and socialistic serfdom is stark.

Four years later, we witnessed the triumph of liberty. We were in Berlin on the very day the Wall fell. The intensity of joy and the celebration of it all bathed Berlin in a glow of community. The city opened its doors to its freed neighbors now become family.

The Berlin newspapers were published every four hours heralding the progress of freedom. The Berlin equivalent of the Times Square billboard shouted in bold letters: "Welcome East German Citizens" while the stores and restaurants offered up free wurst, beer,coffee, sweets, and sundry other foods.

While standing in the serving line, we chatted with several East German families in a coffee house. When I reached the cashier with my tray of apple strudel and coffee, she said, "It is free." I replied, "But I am not an East German citizen. She said, "But you are an American. It is free." The 81 year-old matronly owner of the shop excused the slow service, "You understand this is a special day for us. America made it happen. Thank you."

We were greeted by many such open expressions of gratitude for America's standing firm for liberty against the forces of Communist dictatorship.

The enemy we face today is of a different sort. It is institutional deterioration which will strip us of the very liberty those institutions preserve. It has our nation now set, in Hayek's words, on the road to serfdom.

Where our Founders gave up some of their individual liberty to the Constitution to secure the blessings of natural rights bestowed by the Creator, many today seek to relinquish these rights to government conferred "rights" of social justice.

I am personally motivated to thwart the advance toward serfdom and restore the American principles of our Founding. Republican conservativism is the best weapon.

Although my military career prevented political activity, it allowed me to develop a sense of community through the Jaycees as a chapter president and the Society of Logistics Engineers as a chapter chairman and a national director. I established the European Division of the Maintenance Officers Association and conducted several professional conferences.

Upon retirement, I established a retiree office at Ramstein and hosted the first European Air Force Retirees conference. This helped create a sense of community among the scattered retirees from the Netherlands to Crete, many of whom were WWII veterans. As a result, the Chairman of the Air Force Retirees Council appointed me to the council as Florida director where I served for four years upon my wife's re-posting to Eglin AFB.

During those years, I visited all our bases annually and became acquainted with the great state of Florida from Homestead AFB near its southern tip to Hurlburt Field near its westernmost point.

After the Retiree Council tour, I started a successful county-wide petition drive with 165 sterling volunteers manning all but four precincts which established a Home Rule Charter Commission for Okaloosa County -- the first time such a commission was established by a popular petition drive. Although the proposed charter failed the referendum, the project allowed me to see the super citizens of our Panhandle county and to work with truly dedicated citizens and HRRC members.

A charter would have given our citizens the power to petition for referendums on various laws. I believe empowering citizens at the local level is a way to get our citizens involved in their governance. In that way, we revisit the political spirit of our Founders.

I have submitted a bill to Florida Representative Jerry Melvin to mandate the daily recitation of the stirring 55 words of the Declaration of Independence: "We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. To secure these rights, governments are instituted among men deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

The bill is in staffing and should get a bill number soon. Then, I will post its URL so you can critique or support it or start one in your own state. The bill requires students, teachers and principals recite the Declaration at opening exercises and that age appropriate lessons be taught in an historical context explicating the American mind - as Jefferson called it. In the spirit of liberty, those with reservations and a note from home will be excused from recitation.

At the 4th of July celebration in Little Town on the Prairie, the Declaration was read aloud by an elder. "Laura and Carrie knew the Declaration by heart, of course, but it gave them a solemn, glorious feeling to hear the words. They took hold of hands and stood listening in the solemnly listening crowd. The Stars and Stripes were fluttering bright against the thin, clear blue overhead, and their minds were saying the words before their ears heard them."

Someday in the future, these words of liberty and our Founding will resonate in the minds of young Floridians, their teachers and principals wherever they are.

Bill Dillon
Florida Editor, GOPUSA
Shalimar, Florida

The Florida legislature passed the "Recitation of the Declaration of Independence" bill overwhelmingly in both houses which Governor Jeb Bush signed into law.  The law establishes "Celebrate Freedom Week" during which a portion of the Declaration shall be recited in public schools.   The law also requires that at least three hours of instruction be given elucidating the recitation of:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness;  that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

The Florida ACLU stridentally opposed the bill and accused the legislature of cherry picking the Declaration for the reference to "Creator" thus violating the erroneously characterized "separation" clause of the Consitution.

During the Senate Education Committee vote,  Senator Daryl Jones (D-Miami), who ran against Janet "Boxcar" Reno during the 2000 election primary, raised his hand to affirm the bill and deliberately looked directly at the ACLU attorney and said with a beautiful smile:  "It's not every day I get to vote for an 'unconstitutional bill'".

I suspect that the ACLU will someday challenge the law -- and lose.  We included an escape clause in the law which allows for those who object to the recitation to be excused.  But with our judicio-legislatio judges, one never knows.

The Declaration law was implemented in 2002.  Most Florida schools do the recitation during opening excercises during Celebrate Freedom Week.

The law's full text is by clicking here.