Civic Responsibility and What John McCain and I Have In Common

This morning I woke up at 4:30, got dressed and ready, and started my workday bright and early at 6 a.m. Those of you who know me personally know that I am not a morning person, so the fact that I was in a good mood was highly unusual.

I started my day off with a nice walk into work. I haven't been parking near my house because of the damned parking enforcement (I KNOW MY REGISTRATION IS EXPIRED!!!!!), and have instead been leaving my car in the underground parking garage at the office. It actually works out rather well because the office is only three or four blocks from my house and a little extra walking is always good. It sprinkled a little bit on my way in, which was actually kind of nice. I wore boots and a royal blue pea coat today and felt glad that it finally is starting to feel like Fall!

After I got into the office and made sure that the air conditioner repair people were set up and ready to go, I left to go exercise my civic responsibility/privilege as a citizen and VOTE! Today was my first time voting in a major election and I honestly felt a sense of honor and pride as I approached my polling station. On the way in, I was approached by a man who handed me a "No on 8" flier. I don't happen to share his views but I thought to myself that it's a wonderful country that we live in where, instead of killing each other to find out who is "right," we can take a vote on an issue to decide.
I got to my polling place a little after seven and there were already about 20 people ahead of me, most of whom were also all smiles. As I looked around I wondered about the others standing in line with me. I wondered who they were voting for and where they stood on key issues. I wondered how many of them had strong convictions and how many were just coasting through. I remember looking at the guy in front of me and thinking, "This guy is a character. He's definitely voting Nader." (I know, I know. To assume makes an "ass" out of "u" and "me") In all seriousness though- it was a great feeling to stand and smile with a group of people who probably don't share all the same views as me, but who still share a common love of democracy and recognize that it's our civic duty to get out there and vote.

As I was thinking over all of these things, I thought more about the democracy that is our government and I started to feel a renewed sense of gratitude for our military. On my MySpace page under heroes it says, "...every man and woman who has protected my freedom (and yours too)." I've always felt thankful for our military (nature vs. nurture... is it my military lineage or is it all of the military members I've had in my life since birth?) but I've never really given long hard thought to exactly what it is that "protecting our freedom" entails. Today after voting, I gained a little bit of comprehension. If not for all of our military, both past and present, our democracy as we know it wouldn't exist.

I've spent some time in the last few weeks thinking about whether or not being in the military is a job that I could actually do. I even went so far as to fill out the preliminary application to the United States Naval Academy. I received a letter back from them yesterday that said that I was accepted as an official candidate for the class of 2013. Though it wasn't an acceptance to the university, I still felt proud to have recieved the same letter as John McCain would have received, among other great people. Ultimately, I decided that the renunciations neccessary are ones that I don't think that I would be willing to make. That fact made me appreciate those who did make those sacrifices even more.

It's 5 o'clock now and I'm getting ready to leave the office. Despite the fact that I have been here for many hours, the work that I did today was not strenuous. It also was not dangerous and whether it was particularly beneficial to anybody but myself remains to be seen. If this sounds like you, or if anything else that I've written resonates with you at all, please take a minute sometime to say "Thank You" to a vet. If you really want, you can even wait until next Tuesday when you'll have all day off from work or school in observance of Veteran's Day.