11th Hour 11th Day 11th Month

We run this every year. It's important. 

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
beneath the crosses row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly;
Scarce heard amid the guns below,
We are dead. 
Short days ago, we lived, felt dawn glow;
Loved and were loved 
and now we lie
In Flanders Fields. 
If Ye break faith with us who die,
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow 
In Flanders Fields.
John McCrae
WWI Solider who died on the front in France of pneumonia in 1918.




While you're at it click here and read Judge Jon Schlessinger's moving tribute to his Uncle Edward Kielich, who was buried with full honours at Arlington Cemetery. 


They’ve seen things we could never imagine.

They’ve done things people were not meant to do.

They risked their lives so we can live in freedom.

They are our veterans and today we honor them.


101 Years ago today, on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918 the guns of the great war fell silent.

Our Boys, The Doughboys, lie at rest in places with names like Flanders, Bony, and Belleau. They died on battlefields named Marne, Somme, and Verdun. Almost 5 Million Americans were in uniform for World War I, and over 100,000 died, and more than half of those deaths were on the battlefield.

It was the first time American boys would be asked to save Europe. It would not be the last.

Our nation has answered the call time and time again. Mostly for the right reasons, but not always. Yet we’ve always answered the call. And the price has always been high. Our young men and now our young women lie in battlefield graveyards all over the world, never to grow older, never to see the results of their sacrifice. Sacrifice given with the full assurance that their country would never let them down and would never forget. Sacrifice that Abraham Lincoln called "The last full measure of devotion."

Today we remember. And at 11 am, stop for a moment and take two minutes and reflect on the good things in your life. Think of your home, or your children, or your parents, or the freedoms you enjoy, and your comforts and remember none of that would have been possible without them.

Thank you. It doesn't seem enough, but Thank You, each and every one of you.