Eleven, Eleven, Eleven

   Early on last Sunday morning, out to catch a possible sunrise, I walked in a park across from our B&B in Americus, GA.

   It was a small park, maybe a block long and less than 100 yards wide, but filled with history.

   As I glanced to the east toward the lightening sky, there was this sculpture, silhouetted against that morning.

   I could tell from the shape of the helmet that the soldier on the pedestal was of the WWI era, so I went closer to see any inscription on the base. It read:

SUMTER COUNTY
AFFECTIONATELY REMEMBERS
HER SONS WHO DIED, AND THOSE
WHO OFFERED THEMSELVES, AS
WILLING SACRIFICES IN THE
CAUSE OF OUR COUNTRY.
1917 WORLD WAR 1918

   A close up view of the soldier figure showed a man moving through a battlefield strewn with barbed wire, probably a depiction of a charge through no-man's land in the trench warfare days of that war.

   We have a national day of remembrance today, November 11, 2014, originally called Armistice Day, but now entitled Veteran's Day, formerly to honor those who served and died in that conflict, now to honor all veterans who have served this country.

   So I do that this morning.

   World War I came to a close on the 11th hour in the morning of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918.

   This year is the 100th anniversary of the start of this conflict. The war lasted 4 years. America was involved in only the last 2 years, and sometimes this war pales in comparison to the greater involvement in WWII, or the more recent ones of Vietnam and Iraq, but there were sacrifices of life and limb in those early days of the 20th century also.

   Those who served, and who sometimes gave it all, carried the weight of our freedom on their shoulders all down through our nation's history, and it is fitting that we honor them today.

   And I am glad that I got up early last Sunday and spotted this monument as a visual reminder of the cost of my freedom.

   Let us not forget...