On November 11th we will honor our military men and women on Veterans Day. This holiday started as a day to reflect upon the heroism of those who died in our country's service and was originally called Armistice Day. It fell on Nov. 11 because that is the anniversary of the signing of the Armistice that ended World War I which was at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918. However, in 1954, the holiday was changed to "Veterans Day" in order to account for all veterans in all wars.

To honor our Veterans, GFWC Georgia created a very special tribute video. In our past Connections Bulletins we asked our members to help us with this tribute by sending photos of their loved ones who served in our military. Thank you for your participation. This video is set to the Garth Brooks song “The River.” In this poetic song Garth uses a lot of similes and metaphors. For example, he uses the metaphor of a person’s life being a vessel. He says he will sail his vessel until the river runs dry – meaning that he will always chase his dreams until the very end.  

Our dream is freedom for all. To paraphrase Garth's song just a bit, our Veterans chose “to chance the rapids and dared to dance the tide” for that dream. Some of our veterans sailed their vessel until the river ran dry, and sacrificed their lives for the dream of living in a free world. They chose to not to sit upon the shoreline and be satisfied. They chose to not stand aside and let the waters slip away. When they enlisted they knew there would be rough waters, and that they would take some falls, but with the Lord as their captain, they knew they can make it through. As Garth says, “you’ll never reach your destination if you never try.” Thank you to all of our Veterans and their families for putting your lives on the line to protect our dreams of freedom for all forever. 

We hope you enjoy the video. Please reach out to a Veteran to give them a huge hug and say THANK YOU!  For the full lyrics of "The River" - click here.