Summer Has Come and Passed

Veterans Day, the federal holiday, is the day after tomorrow but today I wanted to revisit some words I offered for ’the real’ Veterans Day which is this Saturday because not everyone will make it to Taftville's Memorial Park at 11 for the ceremonies sponsored by the Frederick J. Sullivan VFW Post 2212 and Peter Gallan American Legion Post 104.

Or perhaps the commemoration by the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 594 starting at one up in the Business Park at 30 Connecticut Avenue is what you’ve put on your calendar. You’ll be among friends whichever you choose (and there’s nothing that says you cannot choose both).

In any event, I hope we can each make and find a moment and a reason to thank those who still wear and who have ever worn the uniform of any branch of our armed forces.

Veterans Day began as Armistice Day, marking the end of "The War to End All Wars" also known as World War One, but which obviously and sadly, failed to achieve that goal, hence the numerical suffix. 

For most of the thirty-five nations who fought in it, it lasted from 1914 to 1918. We here in the United States didn't become a combatant until 1917 but made up in ferocity of engagement what we lacked in length of deployment. 

The world of one hundred years ago was very different from the one in which we now live and was so unlike today it's as if it were another universe. If we survive as a nation for another one hundred years, I don’t pretend to know what it will look like then but it will have a great deal to do with the sacrifices we make today.

We are a nation that has been at war for over a decade and a half.  Some are weary.  Some look at our nation’s history and wonder and worry about tomorrow and all its unknowns. We should be encouraged and not just a little inspired by the heroes and heroines in uniform who are making a difference every day so that we can live as we have and do despite 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 always name but all who whet the blade of the sword wielded in our name and in defense of everything we are and will ever be.

We are, I fear, more plagued by self-doubt as a country than at any time in many previous 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 but as long as we don't forget those who earned that gratitude, we shall always be worthy of their sacrifice.

-bill kenny