In a country that most people would struggle to find on a map. In a compound that few possess the courage to enter men from my previous life took the fight to our enemy. In that compound they found men who pray five times a day for your destruction. Those men don’t care about your religious beliefs, they don’t care about your political opinions, they don’t care if you sit on the left or the right, liberal or conservative, pacifist or warrior. They don’t care how much you believe in diversity, equality, or freedom of speech. They don’t care.

I’m sorry you’ve never smelled the breath of a man who wants to kill you. Sorry you’ve never felt the alarm bells ringing in your body, a combination of fear and adrenaline as you move towards the fight and not from it. I’m sorry you’ve never heard someone cry out for help or cried out for help yourself relying on the courage of others to bring you home. I’m sorry you’ve never tasted the salt from your own tears as you stand before that flag draped coffer burying men you were humble to call your friends. I don’t wish those experiences on you but I do wish you had them.

Most will never understand the sacrifices required to keep evil men like those from that distance compound away from our doorstep. But it would not hurt you to try and understand. It would not hurt to take a moment and respect the sacrifices that others make on your behalf whether they share your opinions or not. It would not hurt you to take a moment to think of the relentless drain on family, friends, and love ones that are left behind sometimes for weeks sometimes for months sometimes for years sometimes forever. Ideas are not protected by words. Paper and ink may outline the foundation and principles of this nation but it is blood only blood that protects it.

In that dusty compound a man you have never met gave everything he had so that you have the freedom to think, speak, and act however you choose. He went there for all of us whether you loved or hated what he stood for. He went there to preserve the opportunity and privilege to believe, to be, and become want we want.

You have the choice every day as to which category you want to be in in which direction you want to move. You have that choice because the best among us, the best we ever had to offer fought, bleed, and died for it.

Don’t ever forget that.

Stay happy frens