Veteran's Day 2004

It's Veteran's Day, and the biggest effect on most people is the fact that there's no mail, the banks are closed, and there are sales at the mall.

It's not a holiday for most companies, so it is unusual if there are local celebrations or rememberances to attend.

This needs to be corrected.

For a number of years, the desire to honor the protectors of our freedom wained. This was a result of the passage of time from WWII, lack of knowledge of what happened in Korea, and ambivalence over the need to honor those who served us in Viet Nam. After the Gulf War, we were proud of our troops, but I it felt strange trying to put together a celebration of those who were still our contemporaries - but we should have.

Now, we know that we are in a conflict for our future. Why? Because our enemies tell us so. And since they have no regard for their own lives, and their only demonstrated goal is our destruction, we are obliged to destroy them first.

Tasked with our protection and the destruction of our enemies is our all volunteer military and the technologically superior weapons our free market system has developed for them to do their job. War by necessity and its nature is ugly and high risk for anyone involved, and our volunteers know that when they enlist. But enlist they do, because they know the existance of our way of life requires some of us to heed a calling that exceeds that of the rest of us. God Bless them for being able to meet this need and challenge. Though our liberal media may disparage their deeds, and the left-wing punditry may challenge their need to perform their duty, we citizens recognize the need for their existance and the righteousness of the deeds on a daily basis.

That is why we need a visible symbol to honor these people now. Because our dominant visible media does not.