Appeal to American NSA Officers: Join Us

Ever wonder what happened to those guys who declared these rights for us? What price they paid? Of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence:

-Five signers were captured by the British as traitors, and tortured before they died.

-Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned.

-Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army; another had two sons captured.

-Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War.

-Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the British Navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his debts, and died in rags.

-Thomas McKeam was so hounded by the British that he was forced to move his family almost constantly. He served in the Congress without pay, and his family was kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from him.

-Vandals or soldiers looted the properties of Dillery, Hall, Clymer, Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton.

-Legend has it when Thomas Nelson Jr was told the British General Cornwallis had taken over his home for British headquarters, he replied, "Blow the damn thing down." Nelson's house is still standing at Yorktown and there are cannonballs embedded in its east wall.

-Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed. The enemy jailed his wife, and she died within a few months.

-John Hart was driven from his wife's bedside as she was dying. Their 13 children fled for their lives. His fields and his gristmill were laid to waste. For more than a year he lived in forests and caves, returning home to find his wife dead and his children vanished.

That rank you wear was granted only after you swore a sacred oath, which made you the guardian of what these men fought for: