Five Reasons to Honor Our Troops

I was going to post about something completely different today and then I looked at the calendar, and saw ‘Memorial Day’ staring back at me (Note to self: get out of writer’s cave more often).

I’m currently doing a Tour of Fives blog tour to celebrate the release of the 5th book in my mystery series (you can win a free e-book at the end of this post). So the natural post for today is Five Reasons to Honor Our Troops. There are a gazillion reasons really, but I’m gonna pick my top five.

1.   They have a strong sense of duty. Granted they may have other reasons for joining the armed forces as well, but the men and women who sign on that dotted line do so partly, or sometimes mostly, out of a sense of duty. That is an honorable trait.

2.   They make sacrifices the rest of us aren’t willing to make.  Not the least of which is being willing to put their lives on the line. But they also deal with a lot of other things, some of which we don’t think about. Oh, we get that they have to cope with being separated from loved ones and the facing danger part. But dirt, fatigue and boredom are frequent companions.

3.   They protect our ability to live in a free country by giving up a lot of their freedom.  Their lives are not their own. They can be ordered at any time to drop what they’re doing, say goodbye to their families and report to be shipped out to wherever they’re needed. And some of them will be affected mentally and physically for the rest of their lives.

4.   They ask their loved ones to make sacrifices. If you’ve ever been apart from someone you love for a long time, you know how big a deal this is. They ask their families and friends to go on without them while they serve their country. They are gone for months, sometimes years, at a time. Not only do their mothers/fathers/wives/husbands/children/siblings/grandparents/friends have to miss them and worry about them daily but they will have many family holidays and milestones that their soldiers/sailors/marines/airmen will not be there for. And some of them will never come home.

5.   They protect us from the evil in the world.  As a retired psychotherapist who specialized in trauma recovery, I have seen all too often the aftereffects of that evil. We in the U.S. certainly have our own home-grown evil, but these men and women in uniform keep the evil elements from the rest of the world at bay.

So now I’m feeling quite guilty that I needed a calendar to remind me to honor our troops. We should be honoring them 365 days a year.

A big salute to all the men and women in uniform and those who have served in the past. God bless everyone of you, and God bless America!

Today through Tuesday are the last days to win an ARC (advance review copy) of my new book. Five commenters will be randomly selected to receive one, so tell us your top reason for honoring our troops and veterans!

COLLATERAL CASUALTIES, A Kate Huntington Mystery (#5) will be officially launched on June 6th!

Speaking of the evil in the world…

   When a former client reaches out to psychotherapist Kate Huntington and reveals a foreign diplomat’s dark secret, then dies of ‘natural causes’ just days later, Kate isn’t sure what to think. Was the man delusional or is she now privy to dangerous information?
    Soon she discovers her client was totally sane… and he was murdered. Someone is now trying to eliminate her, and anyone and everyone she might have told. Forced into hiding, she and her husband, Skip, along with the operatives of his private investigating agency, struggle to stay one step ahead of a ruthless killer. Skip and his P.I. partner are good investigators, but this time they may be in over their heads… and they all could end up drowning in a sea of international intrigue.

Posted by Kassandra Lamb. Kassandra is a retired psychotherapist turned mystery writer. She writes the Kate Huntington mystery series.

We blog here at misterio press once a week about more serious topics, usually on Monday or Tuesday. Sometimes we blog again, on Friday or the weekend, with something just for fun.

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