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Thursday, March 28, 2024
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Veterans Day

Lest we forget…

Yesterday was Veterans Day, a day set aside to honor the brave men and women who have taken up arms in defense of America and the freedom of her citizens in wars and conflicts.  It began in 1919 with President Woodrow Wilson’s words “To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations…”

Through conflicts and wars, soldiers have stood to defend not only America’s freedom but the freedom of those unable to fend for themselves.  They have taken extensive lengths to be away from country, home, and family to make a safer country for you and I to live in.  Shedding efforts, energies, blood, and even their lives they have stood resolute in the knowledge that they fight for the “land of the free and the home of the brave.”  “Freedom”, more than a concept rather a way of life that we will never know different due to the soldier and veteran that stood watch while we slept.  While we at home enjoy our amenities and comforts, there was always  a soldier holding their post so we could breathe free.  Freedom is a right that every American is born with that is paid by the efforts of a soldier somewhere.

Danielle Helson, a teacher at West Creek Middle School, wanted to bring a reality to Veterans Day for her students.  Educating who soldiers are and their jobs, middle school students gained the details of what soldiers do on a day to day basis but saw the reality of what many of their parents “do for work.”  There is a reality that strikes when a child sees who we call soldiers, they call mom and dad.  Mrs. Helson wanted to bring that reality to all her students.  She wanted to make them aware that soldiers who are also “mom and dad” are also every day people that sometimes get passed by.  People like Sheriff Deputy Christopher Montjoy, West Creek Middle School’s Student Resource Officer.  Sheriff Deputy Montjoy was an Apache Longbow helicopter pilot who survived a crash that nearly took him from friends, family, and wife.  There are many “Sheriff Deputy Montjoys” around us.  They are our grandparents, husbands and wives, they are our mothers and fathers, they are our brothers and sisters.  They are our neighbors and teachers, they are all our heroes.  They walk among us every day containing memories and scars of the battle they endured for our freedom.  Lest we forget them, we salute them and honor them.

Lest we forget the battle of Somme and Verdun in WWI, lest we forget Normandy France and the sands of Iwo Jima in WWII, lest we forget 8100 plus missing in action in Korea, lest we forget the jungles of Vietnam, lest we forget the liberation of Kuwait in the Gulf War, lest we forget September 11, 2001 and the war in Iraq and in Afghanistan.  Lest we forget…

Nathan Pearson
37040

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