Many years ago, probably while stationed at NSA, I sat down and wrote this poem while coming up with content for the 741^st MI BN's newsletter, for their Memorial Day edition. Since then it has also appeared in the Ocean View, DE American Legion newsletter, the Ocean City, MD Veterans of Foriegn Wars newsletter, and an abbreviated version on Poetry.com. I thought the content was still fitting for this Veteran's Day, a gentle reminder to thank all of my brothers and sisters-in-arms who put their lives on the line in the name of freedom.

[More]

A vibrant discussion is in the ongoing comments to Ray Camden's recent entry on remembering 9/11. Ray makes a great parallel as to how 9/11 is, to our generation, what the Kennedy Assassination was to our parents. He also tells an interesting, and troubling, story of personally experienced (by his wife and son) xenophobic backlash in it's aftermath. 9/11 will be a day remembered for many generations to come, in many different ways by everyone.

Ray and I often share opposing political views, which is one of the fantastic things about living in our great nation - the fact that we have the right to actually have opposing views, much less express them openly (that's one point I think Ray and I can agree on). I want to preface this by saying that I am not posting this in total disagreement with his post, but rather in counterpoint to some of the comments generated from his post (and some content, but hey, we can do that). If you are easily offended then stop reading now, as I have stated before that I am not, nor will I ever be, Politically Correct.

[More]