Grateful

One Good Thing about today being a day of Remembrance is the realization of how incredibly blessed we are to live in this country.

We have the right to disagree, to be indifferent, to vote, to protest, to buy stupid things, watch salacious movies, investigative films, mindless comedies. We have the right to drive. To cut our hair. To wear hats or not according to personal preference or fashion dictates.

We have the right to eat junk food, to buy locally, to support alternative fuel options, to drive gas-guzzlers. We have the right to experiment or remain entrenched in dogmatic practice.  We have the right to worship God or the Flying Spaghetti Monster. 

We have the right to our beliefs, to our practices, to our excessive, decadent, selfish way of life.

We have the right to be oblivious to all of the men and women who GAVE THEIR LIVES so that ours could continue in a manner to which we had grown accustomed or envisioned as our future.

It is a very good thing to realize, be grateful, and thank veterans and their families, for all of those things and so much more.

Thank you.  I wear my poppy in pride and gratitude for this life you have enabled me to live.

Lest we forget

It is not about glorifying war or exalting the military. It was originally intended to mark Armistice and acknowledge the terrible losses felt by all during the Great War.  Today, we remind ourselves that numbers and casualties are actually human beings and we remember them all.  It is a solemn moment at a solemn hour that marks  tragic losses over the years. I've highlighted the most relevant line of John McCrae's poem as that, to me, is what we lest not forget.

 In Flanders fields the poppies blow
      Between the crosses, row on row,
   That mark our place; and in the sky
   The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
   Loved and were loved, and now we lie
         In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
   The torch; be yours to hold it high.
   If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
         In Flanders fields.