This weekend, while you enjoy time with family and friends, maybe a cookout at home or a pool party, maybe a stay at some Bed and Breakfast on the beach with your loved one, please remember why this is a holiday weekend. Hundreds of thousands of men and women have sacrificed and given their lives so that we may enjoy the lives and freedoms we have here in this great nation. Honor those men and women this weekend. Be thankful that their sacrifices afforded you the right and privilege to live as Americans.
And please, also remember that there are men and women currently serving in harm’s way, protecting our lives and our freedoms through their own sacrifices.
Most of the members of our armed services that I have known have been and are content with a small gesture of thanks from our part. They are content with our support and gratitude. But, if you feel you could do more for those that have served and sacrificed, please consider Operation Hero Miles:
Operation Hero Miles was created by Congressman C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger in cooperation with close to a dozen United States Airlines in October, 2003. When started, the program allowed troops stationed in Iraq or Afghanistan to fly home on leave for free. It now gives family members of wounded servicemen and women free plane tickets to visit their loved ones recovering at military hospitals across the country. Operation Hero Miles gives ordinary citizens an opportunity to help our troops in a very direct way that makes a real difference in their lives.
The program is brilliant in its simplicity. Travelers donate their unused frequent flyer miles to the Fisher House Foundation.
Donations are currently being accepted from the following ten airlines: Airtran Airways, Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, Continental Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Frontier Airlines, Midwest Airlines, Northwest Airlines, United Air Lines and US Airways.
So, if you have a bunch of frequent flyers miles hanging around, please consider donating them so that some member of our armed forces can spend a few precious moments with his or her family, just like the rest of us will do this weekend.
Via Michelle Malkin.
For those of you with veterans in your family, Ancestry.com has just released 90-million military records on their site – for free until June 6th (D-Day). It’s a veritable treasure trove with everything from mundane records of inscription to scans of actual draft cards dating back to God knows when. Case in point – my neighbor last night dug up his great-grandfather’s signed draft card from WWI. Really neat stuff.