If you have time and want to check it out, we ask our readers to review our edition #510 of November 15, 2015 and you can check that, on that date, our Editorial had the same title and the topic was very similar to the one we are going to deal with in this one.
Last Monday, November 12, the City of Lawrence paid tribute to our veterans. The South Lawrence East School Auditorium, where the event was held, was partially empty, not even 100 heads. If you consider that among those present, making up the audience, there were members of the JROTC including the color guard, 2 state representatives, and 3 city councilors (and they are 9 – although two of them were abroad that day) where was the audience? Where were we?
Since this is a city of immigrants, this goes to all of us in general, the immigrant citizens of this great city. Where were you on November 12 between 11:00 AM and 1:00 PM? It was a Monday, marked on the calendar as a holiday so many of us were not working.
Many of us immigrants, once we arrive in this country we seem to forget the reason why we are here. Many do not remember that we all left our countries for many different reasons although sometimes they are very similar. In the end, it was mainly to find the freedoms we enjoy here.
Preacher John Hagee once said in a sermon: “It’s the soldier not the reporter who gives you the freedom of the press. It’s the soldier not the poet who gives you the freedom of speech. It’s the soldier not the campus organizer who allows you to demonstrate. It’s the soldier who salutes the flag, serves the flag, whose coffin is draped with the flag that allows the protester to burn the flag!”
On November 12, we pay tribute to the soldiers who have returned. We call them Veterans! They are the men and women who sacrificed their most precious treasure, their youth and family to maintain this country that we all love, free – the freedom that we once came looking for.
Whatever our religion, once a week we go to the temple to give thanks to the Creator; once a year it is not much to ask that we all give thanks to those who give us freedom!
