Letter from the editor

A birthday wish

Our lives are measured one candle at a time. From our first, wobbly steps to our last, our trails are littered with so many cakes and extinguished flames. Birthdays always seem to be a mixture of hope and regret, joy and sadness, excitement and dread.

And celebrating with us are friends and family - lives we've touched and lives that have shaped our own. The faces change but the sentiment never does. Just watch the next party. Instead of pushing people away, lighted birthday cakes bring people in to a tighter circle.

So as the United States celebrates the ripe old age of 230 official years, it is not cakes that are aflame, but rather the skies.

Bands play, parades march down city streets from coast to coast and a funny thing happens: People get closer together.

Red states and blue states don't matter for a day. People just celebrate together. And why not? If one of the most accomplished nations in history can't look back at 200 years of American ingenuity and feel some patriotic pride, then something is wrong.

But the rich history of our nation didn't come cheap. From George Washington's missions with a band of rag-tag soldiers to the beaches of Normandy to the horrific streets of Fallujah, the currency of freedom has always been paid for with the blood of United States' soldiers.

Like it or not, we can celebrate because hundreds of thousands of others gave up their chance to party. For 230 years, soldiers have lived and died to ensure those around them could pursue life, liberty and happiness.

And this week our battalions spread across Afghanistan and Iraq did not spend a casual day at the lake with their families.

Their walks down city streets weren't in parades but rather in patrols.

Their families spent the Fourth alone while they protected someone else's family.

Their explosions in the skies were not pretty, and they were not fun.

Once again we at home enjoyed another birthday while our men and women in uniform struggled to help another nation take its first steps.

How unfortunate that once again the currency of freedom is the blood of young Americans. But how truly fortunate are those countless millions for whom it has been spent.

Happy birthday.