We just finished Armed Services Day and Memorial Day is just around the corner. This is as good a time as any to tell everyone that I am a big fan of the United States of America. I am very grateful to our people in the armed services for their dedication every day. I am especially grateful to those who have given their lives for our county.
Our family goes back to the American Revolution. We have one ancestor who spent the winter at Valley Forge. What a visionary! What a revolutionary idea! To start a new nation with ideas of liberty and personal responsibility! How exciting to have been part of it.
To read what George Washington wrote about his soldiers there that winter, it is impossible for me to fathom how miserable they must have been. They were mostly naked that cold windy winter. They were barefoot. Many deserted and I doubt if they could be blamed.
But to have stuck with it for the idea of a new way of living was to be hopeful and intelligent. Our armed forces have continued to be the best of us throughout the years.
They are us. It isn't just the "lower classes" who have no hope of a future. Many of our presidents have been enlisted soldiers or sailors or Marines. Today, the services reflect the cross section of our population. They are the brave ones of us.
I recently visited Arlington cemetary where our son is a company commander in the Old Guard. His responsibilities include caring for the 52 caisson horses who pull the coffins to the graves in that solemn place.
Each evening, when the horses are washed down, fed and put in their roomy stalls, the volunteer soldiers get to work cleaning the saddles and harness used that day. Every strap must be clean and perfect to be used to bury someone who served our country in the military services. Arlington is a place where we look at the garden of headstones to see our friends and family who died to keep us free.
All men die, says William Wallace in Braveheart, but not all men really live. To live fully is to live for an idea you are willing to give your life defending.
It is sad to lay these men and women to rest, but we can always take heart that they were willing to give their lives for a sacred ideal.
For only when we are free can we truly give our lives for our personal dreams of a better world. Only free people can worship well and love one another to the fullest extent of their potential.
Freedom is a wonderful idea and the folk who have given their lives for its expression have my prayers all the time.
This memorial day I will be thinking of all the people through the years who have served so bravely to hallow our country's grounds with their blood.
I will be thinking of their families who miss them so much and who will never be the same after their death. They are my heroes, too.
With all my heart I thank those who have gone before and those who still serve in discomfort and danger, far from their families in places we at home cannot comprehend.
Thank you, one and all. May we who benefit from your sacrifice take it seriously enough to do our job in keeping our country free.