As I searched old photos for a particular couple, like looking for a needle in a haystack as they say, I did not find the ones I was looking for, but did find some that I thought were forever lost to a technology blunder, I was so surprised and excited when they appeared on my computer screen, I clapped and said out loud, "oh this is such a good day"!
These were the photos taken on a vacation to Virginia last summer when we visited the retired battleship "Wisconsin", accessible to the public for viewing. It is adjacent to the "Nauticus", a museum of historical battle related items and information. There is an outdoor park area with large bronze plaques scattered on the ground meant to look like blown in a breeze papers. They are inscribed with the actual words of letters from deployed soldiers to loved ones during various wars. Reading them I imagined the writers, their surroundings, and their recipients. Some very eloquent, some poetic, some just regular home town talk. A very moving memorial. The words of people just like us, inspired by their experiences, living and seeing what I because of them have never had to, who felt the same way I do about my loved ones but chose to separate from them, for them, for us.
I don't know first hand what it is like to have to fight for freedom, only the comfort and ease of living in it. Freedom to say what I think, buy a home wherever I want, have children, congregate in the church of my choosing, work and educate myself, go to a store and buy what I need, often what I want just because I want it. I sleep in a comfortable bed, on clean sheets, under a dry secure roof, in a warm house in winter and cool in summer. I flip a switch for light, push a button for entertainment. I can store, preserve, and prepare a variety of healthy tasty food. Each night I am pampered by a tub of warm soothing relaxing water with just a turn of a knob. Each morning starts with cool water from a faucet for washing and tooth brushing, and for the coffee maker. When I walk out my private door I see multiple cars in the driveway ready to take me and my family to our jobs, schools, beaches, parks, malls, churches and restaurants.
This is my America. The land of the free and the brave. Bravery on their part, freedom on mine. Mine is easy, theirs was hard. May we not take for granted, may we not dismiss lightly, may we not, ever, underestimate the price that has been paid for the privilege and luxury that is ours. We are obligated today to honor what they did yesterday, and some to this day still.
It is my honor to meet that obligation. I vow to remember where I came from and how I got here, and how easily it could be frittered away by those who neglect and forget.
p.j.
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