FREEDOM IS NOT FREE AND NEVER WILL BE

More than 100 years after the last shots echoed across First World War battlefields and fully 75 years after the end of the Second, we still gather every Nov. 11 in the cold and damp to remember what it cost for us to live in freedom. The World Wars loom large, from the physical monuments to the date of Remembrance Day commemorating the Great War armistice. But we also recall other wars, from the Napoleonic campaigns to Korea, and backward to Salamis and forward to Afghanistan. Especially 30 years since the Berlin Wall fell we should remember those who stood firm, or ready, in smaller and sometimes frustratingly inconclusive conflicts and even defeats. Freedom is not free, never was and never will be.