What does it mean to be patriotic? I know in today’s day and time it is a word that is thrown around in both good and bad light. Sometimes you feel really good about being patriotic other times you feel like the definition makes you out as a bad guy. It’s hard to want to share your love for something you can’t understand.
As part of the military family we tend to see patriotic a bit differently. Patriotic to us looks like tears streaming down a mom’s face as her precious baby marches off to basic training, patriotic is the newly graduated airman standing a little bit taller with pride, patriotic is the soldier standing as the national anthem plays, the marine holding it together as she boards the big white bus walking away from everything she knows and her family to an unknown country. Patriotic is the children watching fireworks surrounded by soldiers and the awe in their eyes as the Army band plays, and it’s the groups of families waving as a navy ship casts off.
When you join the military family you don’t just use the word patriotic, you live it. You get to see everyday men and women who serve this country with pride. Who work together despite differences to achieve a mission that they believe betters our country. They get up every morning often before dawn, and work all day in the heat and cold, they represent themselves well in the community, and they fight battles that often times we don’t hear about or see. And as the rest of the country fights over what being patriotic means, our military family continues to do their best to defend that right.
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