November 11 is the day set aside on our national calendar to honor our veterans – a solemn pause from the rush of life to thank the men and women who have worn the uniform of our nation in order to protect our freedoms. I thank you for recognizing them – and I only wish that more Americans would also take the time to do the same.
Like all of you, I am proud of a family history that stretches back to the founding of our nation and includes successive generations who answered the call. My father served as a navigator in the U.S. Navy during World War II, while my six uncles volunteered for various branches of the Armed Forces. When I was a child in the 1960s, you didn’t have to ask if your classmate’s father had served – you asked if he had been in the Army? Air Force? Marines? As a result of this seemingly universal shared military family experience, we participated in communal rites of recognition for our veterans, and we respected neighbor after neighbor who had served with distinction in the far-off places we were taught about in history class. Veterans were a part of the fabric of our community, and honoring them was every citizen’s duty each November.