The United States has been in a state of ready or perpetual war since our founding in 1776.
During that period, millions of men and women have signed up and served, or been conscripted and served, and have died in battles and engagements all over the world for the protection of liberty and democracy.
World War was the last great unquestioned engagement for us on the world stage.
We helped to save the world from tyranny in the greatest struggle in world history.
There was no second guessing in that world war which took so many millions of lives.
Everything that has followed has been a test of our resolve and of our reason.
We let our armed forces members down in the Korean conflict.
We won nearly everyone of the key battles but lost the piece in Vietnam. Fifty-thousand Americans died in that conflict – another undeclared war that we waged for all the wrong reasons as it turned out.
The Afghanistan and Iraqi conflicts cost thousands more American lives in defense of what, well, we still aren’t really sure.
We have gotten no thank you from anyone for our loyalty and our sacrifices and what’s more, we’re still there losing our soldiers to savages who nothing to do with American style democracy, freedom for women, education for children, and a way of life free from Muslim defiance of what the world has to offer.
Every Veterans Day is an opportunity to celebrate the memory of our dead men and women soldiers, heroes all, in the long, winding, tragic road which seems to have no end.
Veterans Day is not what it used to be years ago when there were great parades and much fanfare with marching soldiers and military displays and the population of whole cities and towns coming out to watch and to cheer.
The cheering has stopped in modern America but the sacrifice hasn’t.
For those who haven’t served, there is almost no comprehension of what signing away your life to the US armed forces can end up leading to.
We remain a great and free nation, a place of liberty and law, with our soldiers, men and women of loyalty and patriotism, always ready to march when given the order.
That is what we should all think about for a moment, the order given and the march forward, the mission carried out, the end accomplished. Veterans Day 2019 is a moment for us to give thanks for those who have served bravely.