What we owe to each other.....

President Obama's address this morning was very interesting. Promises of our troops ending their war mission by next August and being fully pulled out by 2011. Powerful promises that we should all hope will come through.
He shared a story of two young soldiers who were killed in their efforts to stop a truck full of explosives and in doing so saved more than 50 fellow Marines and a group of Iraqi police. Those two soldiers were only 19 and 21 years old. My son is 16, those young men weren't that much older. As he painted the picture of what happened that day I cried, I couldn't help it. One day while you or I were having lunch somewhere comfortable and warm, talking with a friend or tucking our children into bed these men lost their lives to save others. In an instant the vision of these two fresh faced young men facing the ultimate choice flashed before me. In their final moments did they realized the danger? The truck wasn't stopping - they couldn't have known it was full of explosives. Maybe they did, maybe they just reacted with the instincts of a soldier and became Heroes without a thought other than they had to save the others. These were sons of people who loved them, maybe they were fathers themselves, did they have brothers and sisters they grew up with sharing Christmas morning with? These were kids who probably not that long ago had fallen in love for the first time, probably loved going to a good movie and eating a great cheeseburger, enjoyed a hot shower on a cold morning and dreamed of life when they got back to the states. The tribute though isn't just to their death, or the thousands who have died in this war or the wars before - President Obama said something very powerful, even more powerful than the promise of our troops withdrawing from Iraq. Lest we make a mockery of their sacrifice and lives, he said "WE OWE THESE SOLDIERS", he's right. We owe every soldier in how we live our lives, in how we show our patriotism, how hard we work to deserve the right to be Americans and enjoy the American dream, how much we hold each other up and encourage one another to be the best we can. We owe every soldier who has served our country either here American soil or on foreign soil, we owe it to them to live our lives deserving of their sacrifice.
To quote President Obama;
"You make up a fraction of the American population, but in an age when so many people and institutions have acted irresponsibly, you did the opposite – you volunteered to bear the heaviest burden. And for you and for your families, the war does not end when you come home. It lives on in memories of your fellow soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who gave their lives. It endures in the wound that is slow to heal, the disability that isn’t going away, the dream that wakes you at night, or the stiffening in your spine when a car backfires down the street. "
“Semper Fidelis” – it means always being faithful to Corps, and to country, and to the memory of fallen comrades like Corporal Jonathan Yale and Lance Corporal Jordan Haerter. These young men enlisted in a time of war, knowing they would face great danger. They came here, to Camp Lejeune, as they trained for their mission. And last April, they were standing guard in Anbar. In an age when suicide is a weapon, they were suddenly faced with an oncoming truck filled with explosives. These two Marines stood their ground. These two Marines opened fire. And these two Marines stopped that truck. When the thousands of pounds of explosives detonated, they had saved fifty Marines and Iraqi police who would have been in the truck’s path, but Corporal Yale and Lance Corporal Haerter lost their own lives. Jonathan was 21. Jordan was 19.
In the town where Jordan Haerter was from, a bridge was dedicated in his name. One Marine who traveled to the ceremony said: “We flew here from all over the country to pay tribute to our friend Jordan, who risked his life to save us. We wouldn’t be here without him.”

"America’s time in Iraq is filled with stories of men and women like this. Their names are written into bridges and town squares. They are etched into stones at Arlington, and in quiet places of rest across our land. They are spoken in schools and on city blocks. They live on in the memories of those who wear your uniform, in the hearts of those they loved, and in the freedom of the nation they served.
Each American who has served in Iraq has their own story. Each of you has your own story. And that story is now a part of the history of the United States of America – a nation that exists only because free men and women have bled for it from the beaches of Normandy to the deserts of Anbar; from the mountains of Korea to the streets of Kandahar. You teach us that the price of freedom is great. Your sacrifice should challenge all of us – every single American – to ask what we can do to be better citizens."