Thanks, veterans

Today is Veteran’s Day and I would be extremely remiss if I didn’t send a shout out to veterans past and present who have served their country bravely and honorably. Thank you for doing what you do. Without you, our freedoms wouldn’t exist.

One of my favorite quotes about veterans comes from former Senator Zell Miller (D-GA), from the barnburner speech he gave at the 2004 RNC (video here):

And nothing makes this Marine madder than someone calling American troops occupiers rather than liberators.

Tell that to the one-half of Europe that was freed because Franklin Roosevelt led an army of liberators, not occupiers.

Tell that to the lower half of the Korean Peninsula that is free because Dwight Eisenhower commanded an army of liberators, not occupiers.

Tell that to the half a billion men, women and children who are free today from the Baltics to the Crimea, from Poland to Siberia, because Ronald Reagan rebuilt a military of liberators, not occupiers.

Never in the history of the world has any soldier sacrificed more for the freedom and liberty of total strangers than the American soldier. And, our soldiers don’t just give freedom abroad, they preserve it for us here at home.

For it has been said so truthfully that it is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us the freedom of the press. It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech.

It is the soldier, not the agitator, who has given us the freedom to protest.

It is the soldier who salutes the flag, serves beneath the flag, whose coffin is draped by the flag, who gives that protester the freedom to abuse and burn that flag.

And it is the soldier who we are all saluting and praying for today.

Flashback:

• 11/11/07: Celebrating America and what makes her so great