It's the 5th of July. The day after Independence Day. We celebrated, talked about the importance of freedom with our kid, watched the Schoolhouse Rock videos with our kid on youtube.
You know the drill.
Tonight we made the fairly short trek to the home of my sister in law and her family and we celebrated being a family in a free nation. Okay, long on the family and short on the free nation bit.
But we celebrated.
And then, we came home and I caught up on my social media, like you do.
This one post on the Book of Faces, as I like to call it, caught my eye and my heart:
"First if all, Senator, I'd like to thank you for accepting my friend request. Secondly, I want to thank you for what you did for me. In 2000 I was in the MTARNG as a medic. I decided to go back to Active duty an was denied a hearing waiver. I took all my paperwork to your office. In December it was overturned. And reported to Fort Campbell after t h e birth of my son, in January. I'm now a Disabled Vet from my tour in Iraq. Which is fine. Because of you I was able to live my dream of serving my country as a Soldier. Thank you again, so very much. I'm am deeply in your debt."
It was posted on my father's FB page from a high school friend. In this very moment my worlds all collided: social media, high school, family, world.
This grateful friend was delighted at the opportunity to serve. To serve. In a time of war. A war that was based on lies for some and freedom for others. A war we didn't ask for but we received. And this friend, and I do call him a friend, answered the call, and asked (nay, pleaded) to be part of the ugliest, scariest, most dangerous part of it all. And my dad, having been a servant of his country and his state, obliged him with his service.
My dad's service to his country started in the US Marine Corps and has never ended. Despite his honorable discharge after a few short years of service, he never forgot what it mean to be a Marine. And he is still that corporal at heart today. And in his years in the US Senate, he was dedicated to every plea for help from any serviceman, whether it was to help a soldier home to give half of his liver to his mother or to help my friend return to active duty during wartime.
And that just makes me think how proud I am of this nation and her people. While we are far from a perfect society, we are striving to be better. We are striving to accept our fellow men and women more completely for who we are. In the same week that SCOTUS made what was seen by many as a disappointing ruling that gave corporations the same rights of religious freedom as individuals, anti-gay and LGBT legislation was struck down by courts in individual states. We seem to take one step forward and one step back.
BUT WE ARE TAKING STEPS. The fight is being fought. The conversations are being had. And that, as much as anything in this time of turmoil and unrest and religious fanaticism around the world gives me heart. We are having the conversation. The response is not a foregone conclusion. We are becoming a nation who no longer is content to sweep injustice under the rug. We may not be, and we are far from, perfect. But we have not given up on the idea of freedom. We simply haven't.
As disappointed as we may be with this issue or that, steps are being taken that can't be taken back. My daughter will grow up in a world where it's okay for her to stand up and say "I fight like a girl" and maybe it won't be an insult anymore. It'll be okay for her to love whomever she chooses. And it'll be okay for her to speak her mind, to be a 'fangirl', to be smarter than the boys in the room, and to be "girly"-- whatever that will mean when she's a young woman.
On this day when I have celebrated family and joy and freedom. I thought it would be disappointing if all of these things went with out saying.
Thank you, sincerely, from the bottom of my heart, to those who have served in the war zones abroad. Thank you to those who have questioned the loss of life and treasure for a trumped up reason. Thank you to those who protect me and my family from fire, from danger, from loss. Thank you to those who serve to make this nation the example of true democracy our founding fathers hoped for, but could not create. To the the outsider, the disenfranchised, the hopeless, I say to you today: there are people who see you, who hope for you, who work for you and who love you, as our Creator loved you.
Happy Independence Day, America. This feels like our cantankerous teens, and we have a long way to go. But we've grown so much, and we have much to celebrate, and we should not neglect to do so.
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