A Few Thoughts on Veteran’s Day

Spending my morning at the airport greeting WWII veterans flying in from Kansas City for their Honor Flight was one of the most powerful and rewarding things I’ve been able to do in DC – perhaps in my entire life. It is a humbling reminder of the greatness of our country that these men, farm boys originally from towns you’ve never heard of in Middle America Missouri, most of whom probably were without a high school degree when they enlisted, helped defeat the gravest scourge of humanity in history. I was struck with feelings at once of sadness and of hope. I felt sadness because, like the leaves of a tree on an autumn day like today, their number is inevitably falling and one day will be no more. But I also feel hope because just as they had the veterans of the Civil War, and the veterans of the Civil War had the veterans of the Revolutionary War, we have them and their memory as our guides for the future. Though we have big shoes to fill, I feel confident that with them as our models, our generation will grow and blossom into the next Greatest Generation and continue our nation’s story in guarding the flame of freedom and climbing the ladder of human greatness.