Good morning and welcome.  We gather as a community again today at the eleventh hour, on the eleventh day of the eleventh month, for some moments of remembrance, reflection, and appreciation for our veterans. 

We do this ritually once a year, in the hope that taking the time today will cause us to pause and reflect more often in the coming year, about the gifts we have been given by those who came before us, and especially the freedoms we enjoy that would certainly not be ours without the sacrifices of our military veterans.

Americans, as a people, generally don't spend a lot of time looking back, and regretfully, many individuals seem to believe that the world began with their birth, the universe revolves around them, and they are entitled to whatever they have, or that they might aspire to.

You only have to visit one military cemetery to see graphic evidence to the contrary.  Row after row of grave markers, each of which represents a person, who died because they knew that the world did NOT begin and end with them, and that entitlements, the most important of which is freedom, come only with supreme sacrifice. 

So many have suffered and died, and so many continue to risk everything, so that the rest of us have the freedom to go on from day to day, much of the time unaware, that what we take for granted, is by no means guaranteed.

And so we are gathered here today, at the eleventh hour, on the eleventh day of the eleventh month to acknowledge, that what is most precious to us -- our freedom -- was purchased and is safeguarded by the willingness of past and present members of our armed forces, to sacrifice and possibly die to protect and preserve our national ideals.   

To all our veterans, and to all of those who presently serve in uniform, today, we humbly say:  Thank You.