People ask how we do the job we do, and there’s another answer, too: because of you. We fight, and you hope. The act of taking up that banner links everyone together, even if you never take up a weapon. Freedom doesn’t mean isolation; it means connection, and admittance to a club with a wide-open membership. We have a common desire, it’s just the execution that’s different.
People ask how they can support us.
It’s very simple.
Vote.
I don’t care who you vote for, I just care that you do. Our deaths, our injuries, our sacrifices, are all payment for that concept of giving people a voice. We’ve given you a gift. We’ve paid for it already. We are here, and we will be here till the job is done. Yet there are people who say that the process is stupid, flawed, unnecessary. They may be right. But we’re here for a reaon, and every one hwo doesn’t vote negates that reason just a bit.
People ask how they can support us.
Vote.
My ballot was not blood-stained, but that’s because a truckload of them probably got blown up. I was using a generic ballot, not even the one I was sent. In order for us to vote, someone gave up their life. The Iraqis haven’t seen a real election in thirty years. It’s a brand new right for them, and some of them are willing to die for it.
Vote.
Take up the banner for all the people, living and dead, who fought for this. Take up your part in the fight.
Someone whose blog I read asked recently, “Do soldiers get to vote?” The answer is yes; hell, yes. We all get to vote.
The other day, I was talking to a traveler on the phone, making plans for a business trip. He was a nice guy, from Virginia, and he wanted to fly out on November 1st. “You’ll be gone over Election Day. Are you planning to get an absentee ballot?” He hadn’t thought of that, and changed his plans and will now depart late in the morning on the 2nd, so that he has time to hit his polling place first thing.
We went on and finished his res. He’s departing from “Reagan National,” but I booked him out of “Washington National.” Sure, he’s voting across the divide from me, but he’s in a “safe” state for his side, and I’m in a “safe” state for my side. But that doesn’t really matter – what matters is that he will vote, and I will vote, and we’ll both enjoy the right to bitch and moan for the next four years – one of us more than the other.
So in a couple of weeks – get off your ass and vote, dammit. Vote as if your life depends on it, because there’s always the chance that it will.