I want to take this time to say thank you. Thank you to all of our veterans who have fought for our nation. It is because of you that my brother can sit upstairs for hours and play his shoot’em up games and wish he was a soldier. Because of you I can freely roam the internet during class and play football after school. I can say what I want, when I want, and I know I need not fear for my life.
I want to make a more personal thanks to my father. Since before I can remember my father has been in the United States Army. He lives by Thomas Paine’s quote, “If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.” He has fought to preserve the freedoms that we enjoy today, and that we may never be called to fight for these freedoms. My dad has been to places near and far, and called to foreign lands to fulfill his duties. My father helped liberate a failed country. He served two tours in Iraq, spending months getting shot at while I was a little kid who didn’t really know that my daddy was in danger. He drove trucks through hell and back to bring the needed supplies to his brothers on the battlefields. My father has made it further than anyone ever expected him to. In small town USA, instead of becoming a 9-5 factory worker, he has become a Lieutenant Colonel, and at this rate he may very well be a general. He leads his team around the country making sure we are always ready for defense and civilian aid.
Now, he is set to retire the year before I will graduate from college, perhaps as an officer. He has vowed to stay on an extra year, just so I have to salute him if that is my path. And that is my goal. Maybe when I stand at attention and salute to him he will know what he has done for me. I could not be more proud of my father for what he has done for me and my brother, but I have never found the right way to tell him that. I’m sure he knows though, I’m sure he knew by the smile on my chubby, two year old face when he came home.
Thanks Dad, I love you tons,
-C
Photo from 2003 source unknown