Reflections on Veterans" Day

My earliest memories of American soldiers occurred during our time in the Philippines. Clark Air Force Base and Subic Naval Station were located on Luzon, the main island of the Philippines. We would have the privilege to interact with these young men who had come for some R&R from the battle in Vietnam. They were only a few years older than I was, and I respected them for their response to the call. As we often have heard, "Freedom Isn't Free" - someone paid for it. I salute our military personnel at home and abroad, those veterans who have serve in foreign wars, and those who have given their lives so that we might enjoy the freedoms which we share.

From time to time it has become the popular thing for some of our own people as well as foreign nations to discredit our military and our country. Peggy Noon wrote (here) an interesting piece in which she observes the following:

... America has gone to Europe twice in the past century to fight for peace. This is an old concept, and has to do with killing killers so they can't kill anymore. It cost America a lot to do this, and we kept no territory, as they say, beyond the graves where our soldiers lie. America then taxed itself and gave its wealth not only to its allies but to its former adversaries, to help them rebuild. We didn't actually have to do this. We did it to make the world better. We did it to foster peace. (They should give us a prize.)

America hasn't just helped the world, it literally lit the world with its inventions, which are the product of its freedoms. The lights under which the Peace Prize judges read, and rejected, the worthy nominations? Why, those lights were invented by an American. The emails the committee members sent to each other, sharing their banal insights on leadership? They came through the Internet. Who invented the Internet? It was a Norwegian bureaucrat with a long face and hair on his nose and little plastic geometric eyeglasses? Oh wait, it was Americans. The members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee are healthy because they have been inoculated against diseases such as polio. Who invented the polio vaccine, an enfeebled old leftist academic in Oslo? Nah, it was a man named Jonas Salk. He was an American.

Today, we salute you who have served our country and served us by risking your lives. May God Bless You in a special way!