Birthdays, Blood and Bob, Let's Truly Celebrate

It seems appropriate that I should consider July the 4^th, Independence Day.  First of all, my firstborn, Aaron Tennessee, was born on this day which makes it special no matter what.  I am not a flag-waver but I am a flag flyer, just put mine out which is my daily habit.  I don’t love America, I love my wife, family, and neighbor, but I am loyal and committed to my country.  America has afforded me a kept peace that has freed me to work for and enjoy a certain level of success.  I am very aware that this peace has come at a price, a deadly, brutal, and bloody price.  The kept peace that we all sunbathe, riot, hike, march, ski, eat hotdogs, and make art and love under is actually that, KEPT.  It is kept by men and women who guard it all over the world, right now, yesterday and hopefully tomorrow.  My wife’s father, now dead some few years fought in the Pacific Theater in WW II, up those bloody islands ending at Hiroshima.  He never talked to his children about it but toward the end of his life, he unloaded a lot of broken horror to me.  Years before, my wife and I had bought our first brand new car, a Toyota Van.  He never looked at it or even acknowledged we had it.  Two of my wife’s uncle were pilots in the European Theater, both shot down, one became a prisoner of war under brutal conditions and the other died, Uncle Joe, over Belgium, his parents never saw him or even his grave, again.  I stood holding Betty as a few years ago she wept over his grave.  The last full measure.  The world is covered in American’s blood, evil exists, exists in abundance, and evil, when confronted, will draw blood.  Today, somewhere on our earth, it is likely that another American will die in this KEPT process, in our brutal times it might be right on our own soil, America, this country that I actually do love.  Many Americans will not consider July 4^th, Independence Day, today, it’s just another day, another holiday and the KEPTNESS we all enjoy will be lost on them even while they are enjoying all its rewards.  Once again, Bob, Uncle Ken Wisner, and Uncle Joseph Zitnik, thank you, I am grateful I knew two of you and look forward to one day meeting the other.  Most Sincerely, Lee

I keep this picture beside my chair.  Two men I dearly loved one of which,
the one in the corner, I wrote on today, Robert (Bob) Claggett Brown Jr.