(Photo courtesy of Julia Williams)
This Memorial Day is a bit of a milestone with Nicholas preparing to graduate from Enloe High School and it being just slightly more than five years ago that we got our date for Dad’s service at Arlington National Cemetery.
It seems almost a lifetime ago that it was my turn to walk across the stage at the Ocean Centre in Daytona Beach as a graduate from Spruce Creek High School in Port Orange. Oh, wait a minute…it was at least half of a lifetime!
By the time I received the empty folder and the handshake from our diminutive principal, my future course of study in the technical disciplines at the University of Central Florida was already arranged and all I needed to do was get through the summer working pretty insane hours to take up my place in Orlando that fall.
Nicholas will be entering Wake Technical Community College and starting out studying Automotive Systems Technology this coming Fall with the intention of eventually becoming an auto mechanic. Whether he ultimately ends up doing that with his career is up to him.
I remembered being absolutely convinced I was going to fly Boeing 727s for Delta Air Lines and then was equally convinced I was going to do a dual major in computer and electrical engineering before finally settling on graduating with a degree in Computer Science with no regrets at all!
What I’m truly thankful for is that we live in a country that allows us such a choice of what sort of career we wish to have if we’re willing to work hard enough for it.
Certainly there are challenges aplenty to be overcome along the way but the freedom to choose that we often take so much for granted was paid for in the dearest coin known to our country.
And that price continues to be paid by those brave Americans who choose to serve in our country’s armed forces. That notion of the volunteer military comprised of people who choose to be there to serve is very much the exception in this world. To be sure, there are some members who are forced to enlist as the result of a court order or sentence handed down by the judge but the vast majority of our soldiers, sailors, and airmen *CHOOSE* to serve even knowing the restrictions one one’s liberty that comes with the service and even the ultimate price that may be required of them in our country’s service.
And that brings me to the next milestone for Nicholas…registration in the Selective Service System in case the military ever needs to reinstate the draft in time of war. Even though registration is compulsory, I would hope that he would view that registration with pride that he is doing what his country asks of him as a contributing citizen to be available should the call ever come. Active conscription hasn’t occurred since 1973 when the military moved to an all-volunteer force and I’d be mightily surprised if it ever resumed in my lifetime or his even as many wars as we seem to be fighting in recent years.
I’m pretty sure Dad was convinced that I’d likely never find myself in military service just as I’d be really surprised if Nicholas were to ever choose to enlist. The fact that we have the freedom of choice to discover where our destiny may choose to lead us is perhaps his greatest gift to the both of us, one we hope to pass along to those who come after us!
Memorial Day is an opportunity to remember the freedoms we as American citizens enjoy that are unrivaled anywhere else in the world and that despite the many flaws in our current society, we are still the greatest country in the world thanks to those who choose to serve and sacrifice for the rest of us to be truly free.
Hopefully you will remember this on all of the other days of the calendar when it is just as applicable if not celebrated quite as much!