The Price of Freedom

Today is Armistice Day, and as of years of late, it seems to be forgotten by many - that is if they even knew its significance in the beginning. When I posted about Armistice Day last year, I was reminded by a reader that freedom isn't free. Many who enjoy freedom forget that someone had to pay for it - in this instance with their lives, with their injuries, with their grief. The mothers and wives and sisters who let their men go paid the price just as much as those who died on the battlefields. The soldiers who returned with broken bodies and broken minds, paid the price. Those that were blessed to return whole, also paid the price - they witnessed friends die beside them, they gave up careers and study opportunities and families to fight. Everyone who was affected in some way, paid for our freedom. Let us never forget that freedom has a price - and that not many are prepared to pay it.

At the eleventh hour ... of the eleventh day ... of the eleventh month ... let us remember.

In Flanders' fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders' fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders' fields.

("In Flanders' Fields" by John McCrae.)