Memorial Day Speech on combat, service, sacrifice, and remembering the fallen

This is not a typical episode, but I felt it was worth sharing. It's a speech I gave for Memorial Day. The audio quality isn't great, but it's meaningful to me. If I can use this podcast and platform to help keep the memory of the fallen alive, then it will have all been worth it. 
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Freedom isn’t free. I had the chance to take a history class with the man who coined that phrase, Col. Walter Hitchcock. His point was that living in a free democracy costs money, effort, and more than anything young men and women willing to pay the ultimate sacrifice.

Though I didn’t quite understand it at the time, I do now. These young people traded in their lives and dreams so that we can live ours. Honoring their memory and sacrifice, along with their family’s sacrifice, is a small way we can begin to repay our tremendous debt to them.