Why We Should Celebrate Independence Day

I hope you enjoyed your Independence Day Celebrations yesterday! Here’s another article I wrote for The Courage in honor of this day and the people who died to preserve our freedom.

“What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated.”

~ Thomas Paine

21 years ago this summer, I took the lightly sloped path down to the Vietnam memorial in Washington D.C. During my earlier childhood, I had listened to brief stories of my father’s wartime service in the jungles of Southeast Asia, but those stories gained new significance as name after name rose up from the ground, indelibly etched into the reflective black granite. All too soon, the granite silently towered above me and a lump rose in my throat. Somehow, hearing about 58,000 people dying doesn’t leave the same impression as seeing thousands of names stretching out in every direction….

Read the the rest of the article at The Courage.