From: HK Edgerton <hk.edgerton@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Jun 28, 2011
Subject: Fwd: Thank you Mr. Edgerton / A shared Letter and A Open Report / Sgt. Thrasher

I have included in my report about Sgt. Perry Thrasher the letter below from Officer and Compatriot Randy D. Hillyard because it reminds me of what my mom said to me after my little brother, my Southern and oft times Northern family, and I, finished the Historic March Across Dixie.
 
There I was feeling pretty good about all the accolades that we were receiving for accomplishing what folks deemed an incredible undertaking; a Black man donned in the uniform of a Confederate soldier, with the Southern Cross in hand, marching twenty miles a day, six days a week, some 1,600 miles , expostulating, extrapolating, confabulating with great zeal with the citizenry about the Southern Cross and about those who made an honorable stand in their homeland that had been invaded , and for the Constitutional Republic that was no more in the end. My mom would say, "look around son, you have not done enough!"
 
Today, I look around first to Korean War Veteran, Sgt. Perry Thrasher, who continues to feel like a prisoner of war in the hospital room of the very Federal entity that borrowed his grandpa’s flag, and used it as a symbol of the American public in that war theatre with his life on the line as so many of his fellow Southern brothers and sisters would do in defense of the very principles that he was now being denied just as his grandpa had been.
 
And never to forget, I looked around to young Candice Yvonna Hardwick, who wrote a poem in honor of the Southern Blacks folks around her, and was called a nigger lover, who made a stand for Dixieland with the Southern Cross in hand and was called a racist bigot, as she was robbed, had her life threatened, car stolen, chased from her school, conveniently laid off from her job, and just this week, the tire from her car just mysteriously came off as she drove down the freeway, wrecking it, and if not from the hand of the almighty God would not still be here among us on earth.
 
I shall make my way on July 5, 2011 to see Sgt. Thrasher and on July 6, 2011 to see young Candice, if not but for one thing, and that is to uplift their spirits and to let them know that Americans from all walks of life on both sides of the Mason Dixon, Red, Yellow, Black and White love and respect them for making an honorable stand for what they believe in, in lieu of the hardships they have had to endure because of it.
 
No, Officer Hillyard, I feel frail in comparison to the heroic folks like Sgt. Thrasher, Young Candice, the seven men of Richmond who made a stand against the Dupont Company, the babies of Hayes High in Texas, the babies of Maryville High in Tennessee, young Tommy Defoe of Knoxville, Paul McClaren of Mississippi, Justin Michael Williams of Osceola,.Missouri, young Kayla Hodges of Flat Rock Middle School in N.C., and so many others too numerous to mention who looked doom in the eye and said no; I shall not and will not succumb.

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From: Hillyard, Randy D. <rhillyard@nwacc.edu>
Date: Mon, Jun 27, 2011
Subject: Thank you Mr. Edgerton
To: hk.edgerton@gmail.com
Cc: mail@southernheritage411.com

Mr. Edgerton,

I want to tell you that you sir changed my life.  I am a southerner, but wasn’t always proud to be.  Like many others, I believed the lies or we’ll call it half truth they taught in school.  That was until the first time I listened to a video presentation featuring you.  It not only made me proud to be a southerner, but it also peaked my interest to want to learn more and so I have.

I am a full time police officer for a local community college and I also attend classes there also.  I am currently taking an Arkansas history class and we just covered the chapter on the Civil War in Arkansas which of course also covered with the issue of slavery.  In one article we were required to read it started of course by demonizing southern people and said that many Arkansans entered the war for the romantic notion war created, (yeah, I know how crazy that sounds).  My part of the discussion wasn’t a popular one, many of my fellow students couldn’t think outside the box and believe anything different than the lies told to them through history as we know it. However, many did receive it and begin asking questions and it also peaked their interest.  When I share real history with people, I always tell them to never take my word for anything, but go look at it for themselves.  May God be with you.

Randy Hillyard
Fayetteville, Arkansas