Veteran's Day

Today is a day of mixed emotions.

Respecting and honoring our veterans.

Working to care for their children.

Being thankful for my father and others who have served in military.

Yet today I wish that war did not exist ...

I wish that we would be as focused on building peace ...

War does not bring peace

I wish we work end world hunger, poverty, and hate.

A year ago I walked the beaches of Normandy.

I walked past the rows and rows of crosses at the cemetery.

I drove through towns that still fly the American flag in thanks for June 1944.

I was moved by the memorials ... wondering what it must have been like for those that landed on that fateful day ... and those that came in the weeks to follow.

I stood in the town square in Rennes France where my father had stood 60 years earlier in the days following the liberation.

FDR said it best: "More than an end to war, we want an end to the beginning of all wars -- yes, an end to this brutal, inhuman and thoroughly impractical method of settling the differences between governments."

"One cannot simultaneously prepare for war and create peace."

Let us create peace