[Milsurplus] With appreciation
Mark Richards
mark.richards at massmicro.com
Sun Nov 11 09:45:49 EST 2007
I want to thank all the veterans and their supporters on this list.
The United States remains a fractured nation as to the direction its
leaders have taken our resources and our lives, but I choose not to
allow the boundary between politic and person to waver. I can feel the
same sense of person-to-person appreciation for a veteran from any time
or conflict. They did not decide the battlefield. Instead, they pulled
their boots on and marched.
When someone volunteers to serve their nation they are literally giving
their life and the fate of their family to the nation's leaders and
ultimately to a collectively shared outcome. There are lots of young
pickup-truck-borne, cammo-wearing, Lee Greenwood-listening flag-wavers
these days, but few who drive on down to the local recruiter and sign
up. Those who do have my greatest respect.
Pride in the nation may be seen as a bit histrionic, irrelevant, or in
part the cause of our ills and a common root of conflict, but
appreciation for the individuals who give the whole of themselves for
all of us is never displaced.
It's because you served.
And so my thanks.
/mark richards
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