Respawn

Today is not a work day.

Today, I am sitting on my couch wearing clothes that would never pass as work appropriate (indeed, that hardly pass as decent clothes to begin with...), sipping on half-dead seltzer water and watching Call of Duty: Black Ops as it parades across my television screen.

And although I do find second-hand excitement in the "thrill of the kill" (so to speak... I am a watcher- not a player - of games...), today I find myself thinking.

Another death will soon flash across the screen. I can't tell now whether it will be friendly or enemy fire that will report loudly as another man falls. But I know the victim will be fine. Points will be tallied, players will respawn and the game - and the gamers - will go on to kill another day.

But today, we remember the soldiers who didn't get that chance. The report of a gun or the flash of a grenade stands for more than just points outside of the safety of my living room. Today, we remember the soldiers who gave their all, and couldn't respawn.

They stepped forward when they heard the call, and surrendered their lives in the ultimate gift to their country and the people in it.

Because without their sacrifices, who knows where I would be today... certainly not on my couch. It is my own laziness that finds me camped here comfortably in front of the tube with my bubble-less bubble water and yesterday's shorts... But it is the ultimate sacrifice of others that allows me this freedom and this retreat from the Working World of my awfice.

Clever verbage and witticisms aside...

Thank you to everyone who has served, is serving, or will serve the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. Thank you for your bravery, your sacrifice and your commitment to your country and your fellow Americans. Thank you to the families and friends who went without, making their own sacrifices as their loved ones were - and are - so far away.

But most of all...

Thank you to those who came home beneath a flag. Thank you to those who were with their families again only to the melody of a mournful trumpet and the final salute of twenty-one guns.

Thank you to those who don't get to respawn.