Most of you readers here know that I’m a Vietnam Veteran.  Our daughter Morgan served in the Army.  Our son Doug retired from the Army every inch a soldier, having served in Kosovo, Iraq and Pakistan.  Each of them are certainly Veterans and this post today honors them and all those that have fought for our Freedom.  It is NOT FREE.

I received the following via email from my wife Margaret and added a few of my own experiences and comments:

I hope there isn’t anyone on my list of friends and acquaintances that won’t at least acknowledge (to themselves):

Happy 4th of July

I PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE TO THE FLAG, OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND TO THE REPUBLIC, FOR WHICH IT STANDS, ONE NATION UNDER GOD, INDIVISIBLE, WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL!

KEEP IT LIT!!!          KEEP IT LIT!!!

For all of our military personnel, where ever they may be.

Please support all of the troops defending our country.  God bless our military personnel who are protecting our country for our freedom.  Thanks to them and their brothers-in-arms from all the proceeding conflicts and wars of the past, we can celebrate the 4th of July.

We must never forget who gets the credit for the freedoms we have and for which we can be eternally grateful.

I have watched others, including a young Marine, salute the flag and then stand at ease.  I looked at them in uniform – so young, so tall and so proud.  With his hair cut square and eyes alert; he’d stand out in any crowd.

As a parent I wondered how man men and women like him had fallen through the years.  How many died on foreign soil; how many Mothers’ tears?

How many pilots’ planes were shot down?  How many died at sea?  How many foxholes became soldiers’ graves?  How many are still missing from every conflict and war?

Clearly, FREEDOM ISN’T FREE

Many of us have laid in our bunks listening to the sound of Taps in the night.  Everything is still.  I listened to the bugler play and felt a sudden chill.  I and many others before me have wondered just how many times the sound of Taps had meant “Amen”, when a flag had draped over yet another coffin of a brother, sister, mother, father or friend.

I’ve thought about the graveyard at the bottom of the sea and the unmarked graves in Arlington.  This past week I visited a National Cemetary and saw this:

Enjoy your Freedom and God Bless Our Troops.

Feel free to share  comment or thought about someone you’ve lost or someone that has served.  They will all be posted.

Happy Freedom – the 4th of July.