To Honor Those That Have Served

This coming Monday our nation's people will pause to remember those who gave of themselves to preserve this great country we call our own. It’s also a time to reflect on what has made our country, without exception, the most wondrous invention in the annuls of mankind. This invention, this combining of personal freedoms, rights to live by and a constitutional framework for a democracy set our forefathers on a path that created this United States of America. It was our system of personal freedom and freely elected government that led the people to willingly stand and defend the American way of life.

Over the years American men and women have been faced with unceasing adversity while the United States was formed, expanded, torn apart, and threatened. Today, with our freedoms in place, its easy to forget how we got to this point and while we all hope for the time when it won't be necessary to defend ourselves, it still remains that we must.

This is a heartfelt thank you to all who have drawn arms on a minute’s notice, trudged through swamps, stood on the fence, manned the turrets, drove the mules, sailed on and dove beneath the seas, charged the beaches, hunkered in the trenches, flew with the wind in their face or with a hardened canopy for protection, for those who bore the litters, bound the wounds, rehabilitated the maimed and kept the families informed. For those that gathered information and kept communications flowing, worked undercover, cooked the meals, built the roads and drove the trucks. To all those Americans over the years who left their family and friends as young, starry eyed people and who were changed beyond recognition both physically and mentally when finally returning home, and ultimately, to those who never came back, thank you, thank you.

In the fervent hope that we shall never forget.