What I hope Obama will do first…
By Nettie Hartsock on Nov 7, 2008 in Featured
It’s Friday and tomorrow my daughter and family will go to the Veteran’s Day parade in our town. I’ve been thinking alot about our new president and what I hope he might do on his first day in office.
I realized in terms of veterans what I hope he will do is get up at dawn on the day of inauguration and walk alone through Section 60 of Arlington Cemetery. I hope he will pause at every row and say a prayer of thanks to those for their service as well as understand that every single person in our country no matter what their party alliance loves their country and the serviceman who protect our freedom.
I was very close to my grandfather, General Major John M. Reynolds, who my daughter is named after and there is not a single day that I don’t think of him. I had a lifetime with my grandfather and was blessed by it. But how heartbreaking for those children and spouses of soldiers who have perished in Iraq that do not have that lifetime.
My prayer is that Obama will walk those rows and truly understand the bravery and the cost of war.
As Churchill said, “One day President Roosevelt told me that he was asking publicly for suggestions about what the war should be called. I said at once ‘The Unnecessary War’.
Sir Winston Churchill (1874)
I hope Obama will lead our country not only out of this financial downturn, but out of the war as well. And do so with great respect and humbleness toward all the veterans who have served us and continue to serve us.
Lissa Boles | Nov 8, 2008 | Reply
Lovely post.
I join you in your prayers, and combine my grateful thanks with yours for the service of all those who sacrificed so much on our behalf - on the fields of battle and at home.
To serve in such a way is a huge calling, and not just for those in our forces but its also a calling for those who wave them off as they leave family and country and do what they feel is their’s to do.
I add one more prayer: that one day very soon we find a way together to end further need to send our nations’ sons and daughters off to war.