Veterans Day 2023 · 11 November 2023
Veterans Day is a day to thank our veterans and active duty military service members. And it is a day to think about freedom.
Freedom is not free. It never has been. And it does not matter whether the freedom is personal or national or global. It is always won with blood, sweat, and tears. Always.
It is interesting to think of how we far we have come. We thank our veterans and active duty military personnel because we know the price they and their families have paid for freedom. Rather, we empathize and sympathize with them, for most of us have never walked in their shoes.
In fact, it seems that few of us have had to pay any price for freedom so we often take it for granted. And I wonder if sometimes we take for granted the rights that the Constitution of the United States guarantees. Yes, there have been times in our history when those rights were violated by the very government that guarantees them, but the ideals are there. We just need to do our best to uphold them.
Which is why we thank our veterans. They have been there to guarantee those rights. They have stood against the tyrants and others who would take those rights from us. And from others. Which is why we thank them. Why we have dedicated a day to them.
I know that Veterans Day started out as Armistice Day. The day that the Great War was ended. Of course, we all know that the war to end all wars was not the end of all wars. In fact, it seems that the world is always at war. We are always fighting for something. We hope that the something is freedom. But we do not always know for sure.
Which is an interesting thought.
Freedom is not free in a different way than we often think. We impose restrictions of one sort that we might have freedom of another sort. In other words, we are not ever completely free to do whatever we want. We are not free to take what we want whenever we want. We are not free to harm others. We are not ever completely free from all constraints. Which, oddly enough, is a good thing for everybody.
But what does that have to do with Veterans Day? Everything.
The Constitution is not a universal document, but the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness seem to be. Whether they are recognized as such by any government. And while I will not debate the policies of any country policing the world, I would say that we should stand up for the rights of all people.
Which brings me back to the beginning. Freedom is not free. It never has been. And so I stand up to say thank you to our veterans and active duty members of our armed forces. I stand up to say thank you to their families. For yours has been the blood, sweat, and tears shed for freedom. I thank you on this Veterans Day 2023. And I thank you every day.
© 2023 Michael T. Miyoshi
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