Veteran's Day: Honoring those who have served us.

On occasion I am privileged to shoot for someone who is serving (or has served) our country in the military... This is a shout out to all of those ladies and gentlemen-- and the families who support them. Thank you for making the choice to join the ranks and make our safety and freedom all part of a day's work.

You'll probably notice that this is a compilation from years of photography...
it's fun to look back and see how my technique has improved has improved : )

I'm also including a shot of the good old American flag that I took at Minuteman National Park in Massachusetts. I had walked the Freedom Trail in Boston that week, then went to the woods at Lexington & Concord and saw many of the Revolutionary War sites and markers. Walking along the dark woodsy trail, it was beautiful... but imagining being there in the middle of a war was a little harrowing. I came upon Paul Revere's capture site and could only imagine how scared he must have been out there, all alone-- it's almost unthinkable that someone could put his life on the line for something like freedom, which is such a given in my world today. When I got to the visitor center in the clearing and saw that flag flying, I really felt more sense of patriotism than I ever had before in my life... thinking about the actual day-to-day of someone serving our country, and how big of a deal that really is.

I thought about how we send our own soldiers all over the world to protect our freedom and fight for the rights of others... and how awesome it really is for an 18 year old to stand up and say, "Yeah... I'll do that." How much of a sacrifice it is for someone to marry into the military, knowing that her husband's job is to go up in a fighter plane... or that he's going to be deployed halfway across the world... or on a boat out in the middle of nowhere.

All for the service of others.