I write a blog.

Maybe not very well, but I do it anyway.  I engage in my punditry free of censorship.  I can give the literary bird to anyone I please, and no one is going to break down my door and drag me off somewhere horrible.  I do this on a personal computer and broadcast it to the internet--two concepts that were absolutely unthinkable when I was born.

I do this after working at my job, where I listen to satellite radio, a media for other pundits to speak their minds without fear of official reprisal.  I go to and from my job in a personal automobile.  I have a device in my pocket which can take pictures, record video, make phone calls and generate written messages, and send these things anywhere in the world at the speed of light. (It also doubles as a flashlight and an electronic compass, and if I can find out how to make julienne fries with it, my life will be complete.)  If I find the need to be somewhere in a hurry(and I want to put up with being disarmed and x-rayed), I can buy a ticket on an airplane and be anywhere on the planet within a day or two.

I sit here warmed by electric heaters, typing under electric lights, with an electric refrigerator full of food and beer.  I tell the time by the clock on my microwave oven, and when I get bored with blogging, I can always read one of the many books I surround myself with--the possession of some of which would have led to my incarceration or death in many of history's regimes.

None of these things would be possible without America.

America wouldn't be possible without her veterans.

It doesn't matter where you were stationed or what duties you performed, whether you rode a desk, trained new recruits, braved enemy fire or did things you're forever forbidden from mentioning.  If you served this country with honor, we owe you a debt we can never repay.

Thank you.