Remembering

...because it's 11:00 on 11/11.

And also wishing a little--wishing that we didn't have to remember war and its costs.

The sacrifice many have made is beyond my ability to understand except through metaphor. Those who have not died physically have died to a life of innocence and been born to a life of terrible knowledge. That sacrifice spares me the need to know what they know.

I'm grateful for all those sacrifices and, at the same time, acutely aware that gratitude is no true compensation. Gratitude is, however, all I have.

Except I can also wish. I wish that we did not ask men and women to risk death and horror on our behalf--that we did not have to ask it. I wish that we could share rights and freedoms--claim them for ourselves and extend them to others--without violence.

Maybe I'm naive (maybe?), but I can't help but think the soldiers we remember today may have wished the same thing. Maybe silently, maybe just for a moment, but they wished it--and they went anyway.

To remember and honor their sacrifice, I must also remember and honor that wish.