Enjoying a fireworks show is a staple of freedom celebrated on Fourth of July. (Yana Paskova/Getty Images)
Because we always gather, it’s easy to take for granted all the good memories made every 4th of July holiday. From afternoon neighborhood family pitch-in picnics to fireworks launched from the glistening Lake Wawasee waters under the cover of night, Hoosiers know how to celebrate.
It’s what and why we celebrate that often comes and goes without a second thought.
Last month, my wife and I had the honor and privilege of a lifetime to commemorate the 80th D-Day Reunion with almost 200 WWII veterans, mostly all over 100 years young. As we gazed up to them in perfect formation on stage, we marveled at their triumph over human nature storming those beaches and we were overcome with a moving sense of gratitude and visually reminded that our freedom has never been free.
Yet, it doesn’t take traveling to Normandy, France to be reminded of the high cost. From the birth of our nation, men like Lafayette left France and sailed here to the New World to join our founders in breaking free from a monarch’s rule.