Thankful Thoughts - November 11

In honor of Veteran's Day, I would like to express my immense gratitude to all of the Veterans out there. My family has its fair share of them and I have a large number of friends who are either on active duty, married to someone on active duty or are themselves Veterans.

There is a cliche saying out there that "Freedom isn't free" but honestly, that's true. Even if we weren't fighting a war, there are always military personnel that are deployed to distant parts of the world where they are unable to see their spouse, watch their children grow or hang out with their friends. They don't have access to the little things that we take for granted here in our every day lives and yes, for the most part, they don't complain about it. Their families don't really complain about it either because they know that the Country is just a little bit safer due to their sacrafice.

So thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart to those spouses who are left alone to be a single parent during deployment, thank you to the mothers and fathers who have that panic inducing fear when they hear that their child is being deployed, thank you to the children of deployed military personnel...things are sometimes ridiculously hard for you...and finally, thank you to the military personnel of today, tomorrow and yesterday. Without you, who knows what our freedoms would look like. Without you, would we be in that 1% of the world? Or would we be back in that 99% that looks upon the 1% with disdain?

Thank you for your sacrafices. Thank you for all that you do. Hopefully one day we will be able to support you with the mental health care that you deserve after coming home from war...and hopefully one day we can repay you and your family for your absence.