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This year I was invited by the City of Trenton to keynote a Memorial Day service at Edgewood Cemetery. I was honored to participate Sunday afternoon in a small, circular copse of trees with about 30 other Todd County citizens. I wanted to share my remarks here, as part of my own way to remember and reflect on the sacrifices of those who have died:
Much has been written about the compromise heroin legislation passed by the General Assembly during this year's session (SB192), but I wanted to highlight two parts of it in particular. But first, as a primer, the bill has a handful of goals. SB192 is intended to (1) strengthen penalties and sentences for those who traffic in heroin, (2) increase access to substance abuse care for those addicted to heroin, (3) increase access to naloxone, which blocks the receptors in the nervous system that are affected by heroin (stops an overdose), and (4) creates a good samaritan provision so that people who call for help aren't punished (lots of people have died from a heroin overdose because their friends feared calling law enforcement).
The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet sent out a traffic advisory Monday night that warned of delays along Ft. Campbell Blvd. The full alert is below:
A contractor for the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet plans to halt traffic for brief periods along US 41-Alernate/Fort Campbell Boulevard near Lovers Lane in Hopkinsville starting Wednesday, December 3, 2014.
All traffic on US 41-Alternate will be halted near the Lovers Lane Intersection from time to time to allow blasting on the Lovers Lane improvement project. The contractor will be using explosives to loosen rock to allow trenching for a water lane adjacent to the new section of roadway.
Flaggers will stop traffic briefly about 1/4th mile on each side of the intersection when explosive charges are being detonated. These occasional traffic stoppages are expected to continue during daylight hours for approximately one week.
Motorists may avoid these brief closures on US 41-A/Fort Campbell Boulevard by traveling the Breathitt-Pennyrile Parkway between Interstate 24 and the US 68 Hopkinsville Bypass.
The Lovers Lane (CR-1652) Reconstruction Project is designed to improve connections between US 41-Alternate and the Breathitt Pennyrile Parkway while providing improved access to the Hopkinsville Convention Center entrance.
Westate Construction of Hopkinsville is the prime contractor on the $1,993,975 transportation improvement project. Completion is expected in mid-August, 2015.
I have never believed that I was disciplined enough to be a soldier, sailor, airman or marine. I certainly never believed I was physically fit enough. I have looked at the branches of the armed forces with equal parts curiosity and awe. The culture appears, from my limited perspective, wildly different than our day-to-day. For those serving in desert-like conditions (or elsewhere), even if we normalize for scorched earth, our military men & women live in a very different world. Authority, rigorous calls of duty, honor, rigorous mental preparation, loyalty, uniquely challenging training, discipline; these are some of the hallmarks of military service. With all due respect to my fellow legislators, I cannot say the same about the Kentucky General Assembly, or any other unit of government. Those traits, those qualities, are the rule in the military. Outside the military, they are the exception. Those men and women were once like us, but for various reasons each one volunteered to step out of the comfortable path and onto a path marked with sacrifice, struggle, blood and death. No, perhaps these men and women were never like us to begin with. What they choose to do is special, and, to those of us with a mere fraction of their courage, difficult to grasp.
On Veteran's Day I attended a joint lunch between Hopkinsville's Kiwanis and Rotary clubs. Our guest speaker was Col. David "Buck" Dellinger, Garrison Commander of Ft. Campbell, home of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault). Col. Dellinger gave a resounding call for support for the U.S. Army and her companion branches of service. This call for support is important to everyone in Christian County and the surrounding counties and communities of Western Kentucky, and sister communities in Tennessee. We each certainly share an economic tie to the installation and her compliment of service members and civilian workers, but more deeply we feel a sense of responsibility to the service members and their families. Our communities give time, money and muscle to the men and women of the service and their families. We cook meals and celebrate returns home. We comfort and lift up in prayer the loved ones that return permanently changed, and the loved ones of those that never return at all. This is the least we can do.
Col. Dellinger said something during the meeting that struck a chord with me. He made reference to the line we've heard on the airwaves recently, "boots on the ground." The Colonel said he was one of the first 500 soldiers on the ground in Kuwait in Operation Desert Storm. He referenced distant support from aircraft and surface fleets in the Gulf, but that it was the troops on the ground that made the greatest impact. "Those soldiers drew a line in the sand and dared the enemy to cross." My Veterans Day came to a grinding halt with this imagery. Air and sea superiority are certainly mission critical, but seeing in my mind these men and women standing at the front - quite literally the front line - staring the enemy head on and daring them to cross it. These men and women are heroes. Superheroes. They do that for us. Every. Single. Day.
Be thankful for courageous women and men who choose to leave the comfortable path for the front line. They do it for you.
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