{"id":675136,"date":"2026-05-31T01:42:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T01:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/675136\/"},"modified":"2026-05-31T01:42:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T01:42:08","slug":"hastings-freedom-is-never-free","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/675136\/","title":{"rendered":"Hastings: Freedom is never free"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"StateSPRINGFIELD \u2014 State Senator Michael E. Hastings supported a resolution to honor the United States Marine Corps through renaming a portion of Interstate Route 80. Hastings, who served as a U.S. Army officer during Operation Iraqi Freedom, rose in support of the resolution alongside other veteran legislators.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is important to acknowledge that freedom is never free,\u201d said Hastings (D-Frankfort). \u201cWe owe a lasting debt of gratitude to the brave U.S. Marines who serve our nation with courage and honor. This highway, named after the motto of the Marine Corps, represents an eternal and collective commitment to the success of our battles and the progress of our nation.\u201d<\/p>\n

House Joint Resolution 19<\/a> designates a portion of Interstate Route 80, from mile marker 26 to mile marker 51 \u2013 located in West Central Illinois and crossing through Rock Island County \u2013 as the U.S. Marine Corps Highway Semper Fidelis. Semper Fidelis, Latin for \u201calways faithful,\u201d is the motto of the U.S. Marine Corps.<\/p>\n

Hastings is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point. After graduation, Hastings was deployed during Operation Iraqi Freedom, where he earned the Bronze Star for meritorious service. His military leadership instilled in him a lifelong commitment to duty, discipline and public service \u2013 values he wanted to honor with the renaming of Route 80.<\/p>\n

House Joint Resolution 19 was adopted by the Senate on Saturday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SPRINGFIELD \u2014 State Senator Michael E. Hastings supported a resolution to honor the United States Marine Corps through…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":675137,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-675136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=675136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/675137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=675136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=675136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=675136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}