For over 240 years good men, brave boys, and a few gals too, have died in fields and waters all over this globe to keep this America of ours free and functioning, to defend our culture. With their lives, they purchased our freedom which, sadly, is never free but comes at a high cost.
Contemplating this, it is hard not to have a jaundiced view of the human species which manages to be, as often as not, its own worst enemy. Today we remember the wounded and dead, veterans and civilians, who were in a bad place at the wrong time for the best of reasons.
While we are at it, let's remember too the first responders - police and fire fighters - who've died in the line of duty holding back the domestic enemy or facing the domestic catastrophe. We owe them the same debt of gratitude, they defend us every bit as much as our military does.
