Because They Did

This weekend we were able to wear our Ad Astra Per Awesome t-shirts...

...and put every leaf back in the table at the farm...

...and listen to John Philip Sousa marches played by a band on a flatbed...

...and marvel at pieces of farm equipment that cost $190,000 (plus tax)...

...because my father and his brothers and millions of other boys like them went off to war when they were 17 and 18 years old. Dad, Uncle B., Uncle W., and Uncle H. (who hadn't arrived at the parade when I took this picture) all came back from the war safely, but so very, very many mother's sons did not.

The veterans stood at attention while the colors passed by at the parade in the Very Small Town where I grew up. They know that if they had not put themselves in the way of evil when they were very young, they would not have grown old in a country that remains, for all its flaws, a land of astonishing good.

We can only be thankful that they did.