Earlier today, we again marked "The Eleventh Hour of the Eleventh Day of the Eleventh Month." Originally established to honor the veterans of World War I and remind us of a commitment to end war that proved impossible to keep.

Today the day is for the veterans who served in all wars, especially those who gave their lives in the defense of freedom for us all. My thoughts go to my own Father, gone now for a little over 14 years. He was one of the many thousands of infantrymen to land on the beaches of Normandy on June 6, 1944. He fought through the Battle of the Bulge. He lost some hearing, and was injured when a building he was clearing collapsed after being hit by shellfire. He returned home to Georgia, somehow found his way to Mobile, Alabama, and met my Mother in 1953. I came along in October of 1954 after they had returned to Georgia and started their lives together in Macon.

There are still thousands of such men alive today. They endured incredible danger and hardship to fight an implacable enemy who had swept all before him from the late thirties until mid-1942. They battled an enemy dug in on tiny nameless islands across the Pacific. Those that survived returned home and started us on a great adventure that exhibited the might of America. While scrimping to buy their own homes, to start families, to attend night school, to work one or more jobs, their taxes paid for the restoration of Europe, the occupation and restoration of Germany and Japan, and to hold back the tide of Communism. They were heroes on the battlefield, and loyal Americans on the home front. The enemies of America underestimated them time and again.

Today we honor these men, and veterans of other wars who have made sacrifices in other places and other times just as great. I honor them, but most of all, I honor my Father. I thank him for more things than I can possibly say; mostly for his love, his faith and encouragement, his example. I love you and miss you, Dad, and I hope to be able to say that and more to you one day when we're all together again.