Happy Independence Day!
What can you do for your country?
We all have to walk point on our own patrol, but it’s easier when you have a tribe behind you. Thanks for being a part of our tribe! -JAD
I appreciate my readers from over 60 countries around the world, but today is American Independence Day. While this post is written to my fellow countrymen and women, I hope everyone can get something out of it.
Today the American flag will be flown while hamburgers and hotdogs are burnt on backyard grills. It will fly above the sand of the beaches of our coastlines and lakes and rivers and parks as families picnic and children splash, and gallons of sunscreen are applied to pasty skin, and despite this, areas will be missed, and tonight, aloe vera will be slathered on painful red spots.
Our flag will be carried in front of high school marching bands on small-town streets and tonight it will be illuminated in the blast of fireworks that delight the young, keep the old (like me) awake, and will almost certainly claim a careless hand or two.
It will be raised up flagpoles over our military bases, and cemeteries, public buildings, and homes. It will be saluted and honored as our national anthem plays and it will make some of us misty-eyed because we have witnessed the price of freedom paid in blood.
As Americans, today is our day. Enjoy it. Wave the flag proudly but remember this.
As a piece of cloth, it is made from the same cotton or nylon, rayon or polyester as your swim trunks, beach towels, and Old Navy T-shirts.
Our flag only holds meaning and value as a symbol. It is a symbol I served under for over twenty years as a Marine.
It is a symbol I believe in, and one whose core values of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of happiness I hold dear.
But it is dangerous to allow the symbol, to become more important than what it symbolizes.
As former Secretary of State Hamilton Fish said, “If our country is worth dying for in the time of war let us resolve that it is truly worth living for in time of peace."
So, enjoy your day. Eat hotdogs, drink beer, get sunburned, and blow shit up. but before you fade off to sleep, recommit to being worthy of the ideas our flag represents.
Where you see wrong or inequality or injustice, speak out, because this is your country. This is your democracy. Make it. Protect it. Pass it on.
-Thurgood Marshall
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See you next Thursday!
Spent my day listening to stories from old vets at a local nursing home I visit . I'm there, since most of these men and women just need someone to listen to them and validate their experience. It's the very least I can do for those folks that raised their hands and took the oath.
‘Murica Bitches…😉