Judy Higgins is a veteran of the Air National Guard and a friend of many
years. She was kind enough to share this with me, and I'd like to share
it with all of you.
Lori Fye
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Date: Fri, 09 Nov 2001 13:38:54 +0000
This was written by a friend of mine, a former Navy man, and now a
stringer reporter. I feel fortunate to have made his acquaintance and
wanted to share this piece that he wrote, with you, my friends and family.
Judy Higgins
"Plans are simply dreams, put into action."
----Original Message Follows----
From: "Beth & Scot Celley"
This quite literally came to me in my sleep. Please forgive my pomposity:
Let the word go forth, from this time and place, to friend and foe alike,
that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans, born in
this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, and
unwilling to witness nor permit the same undoing of those human rights to
which this nation has always been committed and to which we are committed
at home and around the world.
It has been more than 40 years since President John F. Kennedy spoke
those stirring words during his Inaugural Address. It has been a little
less than that since I fell in love with his voice and those words in my
parent's home in Carteret, New Jersey. And little did we realize at the
time that he was speaking of what we today call The Greatest Generation.
We have difficulty placing that young face, with the experienced veterans
we come across in our daily lives today. The sacrifices they made at the
time to defeat the evil those who would not hesitate to crush us cannot be
over stated.
One of my father's prized possessions is a picture of my grandfather,
taken shortly by the Boston Globe shortly after the attack on Pearl
Harbor, marching off through the streets of Boston to the train station to
enlist in the Navy. On his shoulders was his young son, my father. My
grandfather, and quite literally millions of others, dropped everything
they were doing and changed their lives to fight the evil that threatened
our existence then.
It is almost unthinkable today to us how much lives were changed.
Everything- from the major league baseball games that we followed in the
papers, to the movies we watched, to those who worked in the stores and
factories here, to the availability of common things we take for granted
today, such as butter- was affected. Nothing in daily life was left
untouched.
The gruesome horrors faced on battlefields and oceans throughout the world
also cannot be overstated. Many, understandably, had difficulty coping
with their exposure to such ugliness for years to come. When they
returned home, few spouses and offspring would hear what the war was
really like; it was just too horrible to tell.
And yet they left what was comfortable and known and did so with a lot of
fear and a lot of faith to face an enemy that threatened us all.
In that same Inaugural Address, President Kennedy also said,
I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other
people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which
we bring to this endeavor will light this country and all who serve it.
And the glow from that fire will truly light the world.
We are still basking in the glow from that fire that was lit on
battlefield and ocean by that generation.
Our debt to them is immeasurable. How can we thank them? By making sure
that the fire, which they lit with so much faith and wisdom and courage,
will not be extinguished.
Today we face an enemy that wants to extinguish us as a people just as
much as the Nazis or Japanese did six decades ago. It is for us, this
generation of Americans, to marshal and devote every strand of our lives
into preserving that flame. Not just for Americans but for all people,
for all time.
History demands no less from us.
Those who will inhabit the future, many autumns from now in the invisible
future, depend on nothing less.
~
=====
If you can't be a good example, then
you'll just have to be a horrible
warning.
-Catherine Aird-
Find a job, post your resume.
http://careers.yahoo.com
