A Better Future

The post below represents a few thoughts I put down on paper back in 2003, during the first year of war in Iraq. These thoughts still apply today, as we remember our veterans (emphasis mine).

“A current of … ambivalence raced across Baghdad along with jubilation and surprise. Relief was tied up with trepidation, joy with anxiety. What next, many seemed to ask. Faleh Hassan, 51, a little weary, hoped the future would be better than the past. ‘I want to feel that I'm a human being, I want to feel that I'm free and that no one can take it away,’ he said. ‘I want to work, so that my family has enough to live. I want to live like everyone else in this world who lives in peace.’"

As reported by Anthony Shadid, Washington Post - Foreign Service on Thursday, April 10, 2003

Eloquent words from a man tasting for the first time that which so many of us take for granted. What Faleh Hassan is learning is what so many of us have forgotten – that freedom is a privilege to be treasured, an opportunity to become more than we are today, and that it comes with a cost.

Some of our country’s finest men and women died so that Faleh Hassan and others could throw down the shackles of tyranny and oppression. Freedom from oppression comes with a price. The freedom that you and I know today came at a similar cost, time and again, over the last 230 years. But far too many of us have forgotten, and too few of us care. The reach for a better future must be grounded in a remembrance of the past. If we remember the price that was paid, the living fire of freedom will be preserved and bring the light of hope to others.

It is not too late to remember what we have forgotten. Acknowledge the cost, and once again embrace the hope that the future will be better than the past.

To our noble veterans, thank you.