Differences

A Marine from our town was buried today…He was 25 years old. The same age as my daughter and her friends…He wanted to be a policeman.

There were several thousands of people at the service. The funeral procession went on for miles. It included relatives, friends, acquaintances, representatives of every branch of the armed services, politicians, dignitaries, representatives from at least 50 police departments, two motorcycle clubs, and hundreds of people who never met this young man; they just wanted to pay their respects and say thank you and goodbye to a hero.

As a Reserve Police Officer, I had the honor of playing a small role in this dramatic farewell. I worked all night then spent a long hot morning assisting with traffic and security. It was the least I could do.

Two things occurred to me;
First, as more of our son’s and daughter’s come home in boxes, there will be less and less attention…
Second, if the people who hate the U.S. so much were right about us, we would have approached the terrorism situation much differently… Instead of sending our son’s and daughter’s as liberators, we would have sent our bombers until the mid-east were nothing but ashes. Then we would have sealed our borders, and deported, imprisoned, or executed anyone who matched the profile of our enemies.

We don’t think that way however. As a country we never enter war as conquerors but as defenders and liberators. As citizens, despite our differing political views we support our troops as they defend the principals of freedom, wherever they are sent.

And unlike the terrorists who embrace and welcome death…we value life, and we mourn.