A Moment to Reflect

Not everyone will make it to Taftville's Memorial Park Friday morning at 11 for the Veterans Day observances sponsored by the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 2122 and the American Legion Post 104. It's probably just as well since it's more of a pocket park located at the intersection of South B and Norwich Avenues, but we'll miss you as we pause, if not exactly stop, and thank all of those who wear and have ever worn the uniform of any branch of our armed forces.

Some folks I know roll their eyes at some of the things I write or say, and all I can do is smile, shake my head and suggest they attempt something anatomically difficult (though if successful, it would be the most productive endeavor some have been engaged in for years). I spent eight years in an Air Force uniform attempting to defend freedom of speech and I like to exercise it for myself, as well.

Friday is not Memorial Day-we honor everyone in uniform, living and dead, past and present, today. When I was a kid, today was called Armistice Day, because it began as a commemoration of the end of The World War, which was later known as World War I for the sadly obvious reason that we had a World War Two. There was always a moment of silence to mark the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.

We are a nation now at war for over a decade. Don't get confused when Kim, Lindsay and the other useless mouths make daily headlines. Heroes and heroines in uniform are making a difference everyday and allowing all of us to somnambulate with our eyes open as we don't see the lives we could have led because of the incessant assault we endure.

It's a new world and a new way of war but those making the sacrifice are the old souls who have always borne the burden--not just those at Forward Operating Bases marked with dots on the map of countries we cannot name but all those who whet the blade of the sword they wield in our name and in defense of everything we are and will ever be.

We are more filled with self doubt as a nation than at anytime in the last four decades. There will always be light and dark, but we shall prevail because we must. For anyone, anywhere, now, or then, in uniform who placed service over self, whenever and where that is and was, thank you.

Sometimes we forget the very words we meant to say-as long as we don't forget those who earned that gratitude we will always be worthy of their sacrifice.

-bill kenny