While a question was raised in an earlier comment, today, I’ve chosen to write on freedom due to it being Veteran’s Day. Any time I’m out and I get to see a veteran, I’m always thankful and usually salute them. It’s incredible what these men do. They are the ones that are willing to go out and face death from an enemy just so I can be free.
In Ben Stein’s “Expelled”, he speaks of how valuable freedom is and why it must be defended. He is certainly right on this. Here in America, freedom has always been of rank importance. I’ve said that I’m skeptical as to how much freedom we’ll have in our next administration, but despite that I don’t favor it, I still urge people who want to enlist, do it. We had a clip playing here before the election of John McCain saying something every American should agree with. “America is worth fighting for.”
Too often, we don’t really think about what happened. I’ll be blunt and say that veterans haven’t been on my mind much today. I fear that I am not alone. I wonder how many people have gone through today and not even realized that it is Veteran’s Day? How many people are living in a land of freedom and not considering how that freedom came about?
Freedom does not come cheap and with things that come cheap, we should hold them in awe. As Christians, for example, we should hold our forgiveness in awe and realize the graciousness of God in giving it, for it certainly did not come cheap, but it involved the very Son of God coming and living among us so we could be free from sin.
How many veterans have their been in history? How many people put on a uniform and took up arms and kissed their wives and children good-bye not knowing if they would ever return again? How many of them are overseas right now as the Thanksgiving holiday gets started simply because they believe in fighting for their nation?
Even if you disagree with the war now, those are still our troops over there in it and we should honor them. One reason you are walking around free and not fearing terrorist attacks now is because someone else isn’t. Someone is in an area and for all they know, they could be attacked by the enemy and die tomorrow. For all we know, some of them might go to sleep tonight and be the recipient of a bomb in their sleep and wake up in glory. We don’t know.
Neither do they.
And I speculate, they don’t really care either.
Now I’m not saying they don’t love their life and wouldn’t like to get back and see their families? I’m saying that they enlisted because they are willing to pay that price in order to bring about freedom for the land that they love. When they enlist, they know what they are fighting for and they are ready to go fight for it.
We saw this after 9/11. Immediately, one of the first stories I recall seeing is that of several people going to offices to enlist for the military. Someone had attacked their homeland and they wanted that someone to know that they don’t take that lightly. These men were immediately ready to drop what was going on in their lives because they love their country.
I still love America. I’m not pleased with all that’s going on in it now and I’m not pleased with the way the upcoming administration looks, but I still think I live in the best nation on Earth. At this moment, I can go and worship where I want and I can speak what I want. I have a job and I have education and I have family and friends. I have that not as a freebie though, but at the price of many men who died in combat so I could be free. If we could count that number, I wonder how great it would be.
Today though, there are some who fought and lived to tell the tale and we need to honor them. Let’s remember though that it is not just today that we are free. We are free everyday because people were willing to fight. Honor the Veterans today that you know.
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