Yes, it is the 4th of July.  Yeah for America and Yeah for us declaring our Independence today!!  Love it!! Truly!!

But Marty and I went to the gym, (and he showed me why I was gaining muscle so fast… seems I was an idiot and did the same exercises over and over and over… yeah.  Idiot.) and we watched all the cars heading to Galveston Island.  A LOT of cars.

My hubs and I decided that we would stay home.  Part of the reason?  Independence Day is a large part of his family’s celebrations, and we lost a huge member of that family.  This year is just not feeling right knowing that Russ is not with us.  So there is not as much fun to be had, and since we are the only Brandiburs here in Houston…yeah.

Later, Marty ran out of deodorant, so we went to Target, and while driving over I45, there were backups going as far as we could see – parking lot came to mind.  Again, towards the beach at 4:30 in the afternoon.

I understand, I did it one year, the whole family went to the beach all day, played in the Gulf, and afterwards, watched the fireworks over the Gulf.  Awesome.  I have done it at Kemah, at Joe’s Crabshack, and again, awesome.  Even better, cause I didn’t burn.  I burn easily, no matter what I put on me.  I tan afterwards, but I always burn.  Hate it, and know how bad it is for me.  75spf?  Nope.  100 spf?  Did nada.  If I am outside, I will burn. And I apply it religiously every hour.. Every 1/2 hour… nothing.

But I find myself now watching it all, and wondering, is everyone celebrating the holiday?  Or the real reason for it?  Have people forgotten that this was the day a colony took a brave step forward and told the strongest nation on earth at the time:  We reject you!! We will do anything to have our freedom!  We will fight, we will starve, die by frostbite, die with a grapeshot in our heart.  We will suffer just to be free.

Think on it.  Nobody had done anything like this yet. We were the first, and we won.  We won by throwing away tactics that were making our soldiers die.  Stand in a line and shoot at the other line.  Then stand there as the other line took their shot at you?!?!?!  Hell no!  But they did.  They did this multiple times.  Before they remembered the French and Indian War and how guerrilla warfare worked.  We used it against the British.  Why?  We were fighting for our rights as human beings, we were fighting for freedom.  It meant enough to our forefathers to fight for it.

The British made it worse, and if they found you a rebel, they killed you as publicly as possible.  They were trying to make people fear them, and instead, they made people hate them and join in the fight for what they want.  They backed the Colonists into a corner.  The backed a nation of people who had taken a chance to live here, in the unknown, to be far from safety.  And you backed them into a corner using fear?  Not likely!! They did what you would expect and rose up against their oppressors.

This is not the birth of our nation as most think.  It instead is the birth of the idea of our nation.  This was the day they said, “We will be FREE!”

This day was never to be a day for people to get drunk and party, especially with it being a three day weekend.  No, this is a day we remember the sacrifices of our forefathers who made it possible for us to drink ourselves to a point that we can’t remember the night.

To this day and right this moment there are soldiers on the front lines, sleeping in sand, carrying weight that means the difference between living and dying, weight that no normal American would be able to carry nowadays.  These soldiers will joke with themselves, going Happy 4th of July! to each other.  And then go back to keeping an eye for the next person to try to kill them.  They fight to keep us free, to give this wondrous gift of Freedom to others.  They give of themselves so that we don’t have to.

Is it too much to thank a soldier?  Just to go up to one and thank them?  For a lot of you, yes.  Think about it.  That young man or woman is willing to DIE for you.  They are our secret service.  They will take a bullet for you.  And nobody says thanks.  You scorn them, you make fun of them.  You pay them less than most of us make, and then demand that they get nothing when they return from seeing things that would make you sick.

Get real, people.  I think it is shameful how we treat our military.  No matter what you think, you should thank the person who made the sacrifice to put on the uniform and say, “I will give my life to protect this nation of ours.  I will lay down my life so that the average Joe Smith can live his life how he wants it.” Seriously people.  We fight in this  nation over the stupidest things, and the important things are pushed under the rug to be ignored.

Ugh.

Take a moment, and thank one soldier to his face.  Just one.  Do this – tell them that you are thankful they made the sacrifice for your three day weekend.  Tell them you are thankful that they did it so you don’t have to.  Thank them.