Following is an excerpt from one of my Monday morning newsletters, TrenzAndFrenz:   http://mondaymorningcomments.wordpress.com/

VETERANS DAY, 2011
Last week began with the implosion of MF Global, sending Masters Of The Universe scrambling to secure their domains. This week will end with Veterans Day on 11/11/11, a numeric recall of its origin in 1918. From the beginning to the end and back again, full circle from the birth of a Superpower to the rise and fall of the middle class and the triumph of greed without accountability.
With the German signing of the Armistice on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, major hostilities of WWI, the war to end all wars came to an end, annual remembrances beginning the following year. Armistice Day, a celebration of the heroes of WWI was renamed Veterans Day in 1954 as a tribute to all who served.
Standing in a hangar at Waukegan (IL) Airport yesterday, waiting for the chartered, specially equipped jet bearing the body of 28-year old SFC David Robinson, I couldn’t help wondering for what these young men and women are dying. We tell ourselves they’re protecting our freedom, yet it is most often from within that peril persists. David’s mother, Morijo is not an extremist rejoicing in her son’s martyrdom, she’s a grieving mothers who seeks meaning in the loss of that which she held most precious. She knows her son died fighting the war on terror, he enlisted after 9/11 to “do his turn”. David’s wife, Emily and his boys Matthew and Jackson can be proud of their husband and father. He will always be remembered as a loving father, a caring husband, a hero and a patriot. To think that SFC Robinson died so that yet another captain of the financial industry could roll the dice with complete impunity casts a pall over those who serve and have served. A pall cast by those who serve only themselves. How do we justify sending young men and women to risk life and limb in defense of selfish men who risk nothing; who lie, cheat and steal as easily as they breath air, who will say anything necessary to amass their fortunes, whose concern for others exists only as a component of their sociopathic agendas?
Wednesday saw the last Honor Flight Chicago for 2011. 100 WWII veterans were welcomed back to Midway Airport after their brief trip to Washington, DC. Hailed as the Greatest Generation (trust me, they are), the men and women who served both here and abroad helped to prevent a reign of tyranny and preserve such American ideals as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Combat gave meaning to the word “brother” deeper than most of them could ever have imagined. Capitalism seems to have gutted the word “friend” until it is meaningless. Have we let them down? They served their nation, they led by example and they gave us the world on platter. On this Veterans Day we can look inside ourselves and ask if we can do better and if the answer is “yes”, we should. We owe it to those who served. We owe it those who died. We owe it to ourselves and to our children. Thank a veteran for the opportunity to re-invent America, land of the free, because of the brave. For whatever they fought, they fought for us.