A Note From a Friend

To my good friends.

I know that you have been spending your day thinking of others and remembering their contributions to American freedom. Because that's the kind of men you are.

But I hope that you will take a moment out of your remembrance of others to also remember your own selfless acts and often painful sacrifices in keeping America's military free of religious bigotry and oppression.

Your efforts are no different in my eyes than the fighter pilot who flies his mission straight and true with the single-minded purpose of acquiring the target and accomplishing the mission or the support person whose skill and technical prowess keeps him flying.

As important as the fighter pilot is, could we have survived without those whose bright legal minds kept the wolves from our doors and stymied many an attempt to turn those pilots into avenging angels of God?

The thankless task of keeping our military, and hence our entire country, free for all races, colors creeds and religions and non-beliefs has somehow fallen on the lawyer and the fighter pilot and more recently on a combat rescue helicopter pilot who thought he'd seen all the horrors there were to see until one day he met Pat Robertson.

Without question our actions may not bring the rewards and accolades received by those who toe the line but our collective consciences, integrity and pride remain intact and inviolable because we have a higher calling, one that requires us to minister to the common man; for after all, he remains the crux of civilization.

My hat's off to you but even more so to your long suffering families who have supported you as my wife does me in our often lonely endeavors.

What would even one normal day away from our travails mean to them?

It is the mission, gentlemen, the mission that drives us. And I am bound by my very soul to complete that mission with the guidance of great thinkers such as yourselves, confident in the knowledge that we will bring this honorable quest to fruition.

Your Friend and Soldier