Honoring freedom and its protectors

This Fourth of July holiday weekend, most of us will let loose a bit in one way or another. We'll wave a flag at our local parade, join family and friends to pig out a bit and watch the rocket's red glare that marks this holiday.

At the start of this week, a similar celebration occurred in Baghdad. Fireworks colored the night sky as citizens partied in parks and sang patriotic songs. Iraqis were marking the end of American-controlled security in their country's major cities, the start of providing their own security and the restoration of sovereignty.

So much there to ponder.

We choose, on this holiday weekend, not to engage in a political debate. For or against that war or any others, we all can and should agree that at its very essence both we and the Iraqis are celebrating freedom and self governance.

And before the birth of this nation, and in every conflict or attempt to secure freedom since, we all can and should agree there are our unsung heroes: our military servicemen and women.

We might salute them as they march past us in the parade. They deserve so much more.

They remain on duty in Baghdad and its outskirts and in the Helmand River Valley in Afghanistan hunting the Taliban and Osama bin Laden. Our women and men in the military are on duty this weekend and every weekend at outposts in South Korea, in the Pentagon and at hundreds of other assignments across our nation and around the globe.

Many of them are our sons and daughters, our brothers and sisters, our mothers and fathers, our neighbors here in our communities.

There is Craig Giancaterino of Elk Grove Village and Jeremy S. Graham of Buffalo Grove in our U.S. Army. Edward J. Sienko of Naperville and Julie A. Garcia of Mount Prospect in the U.S. Air Force. Kevin G. Cronin of Libertyville in the U.S. Marines. Christian D. Bishop of Algonquin in the U.S. Navy. To randomly name too few. There are hundreds upon hundreds more and far too many who have given their lives for the idea of America.

The self-evident truth is, we still too easily take them and all they do for us for granted.

And so we take this time and this space on the cusp of this Independence Day to thank them for making it so.

Thanks, too, to all the workers in agencies and organizations who help our soldiers and veterans. Thanks, for one example, to Alexian Brothers Hospital Network's Center for Medical Education for hosting an event last weekend to improve care for our military members' mental wounds.

That is such important work. And thanks to all those who provide physical care and financial aid and all manner of other care to our men and women in uniform.

So let loose this weekend. Celebrate this grand old imperfect union of ours. And then make time to do what you can to help those among us who sacrifice so much to make every Fourth possible.