Happy Independence Day

Today is Independence Day. While many across the country will celebrate the holiday with family, eating the usual picnic fare and ending the day watching a fireworks display, thousands of men and women will not have that luxury. Instead, they will spend the Fourth of July as they have spent every other day -- away from their families and loved ones or fighting for the freedoms which we so gladly and ignorantly enjoy. They will miss the Fourth of July festivities just as they have missed birthdays, funerals, anniversaries and time that cannot ever be retaken. Are we deserving of that, of their sacrifices? We, Americans who spend our weekends driving to the malls in our SUVs (albeit perhaps not as often in the current economy), attending colleges and sitting in classes in which it is perfectly acceptable, if not normal, to degrade the current war and our troops. We, who rarely watch the news or read a newspaper (they're becoming obsolete, anyway), preferring instead to be content with our reality television and gossip magazines. We who have never seen war, who have never lived under the rule of a dictator, do not know what it truly means to be free. To be grateful. Our troops fight wars abroad so that they stay abroad, but too few understand that. It is a sobering thought. And so I hope that, on this Independence Day, July 4, 2009, you take the time to reflect on what Independence Day really means -- to you, to this country. And I hope you find yourself proud to be living in this nation.