When its time comes, every generation steps forward

I remember as clearly as if it were today going to a school assembly at Central Junior High in Hingham, Mass., and listening to a group of men, only a few years out of high school, talk proudly of their service to their country in a far-off land in Southeast Asia.

They wore medals and ribbons and walked tall and erect up on the school auditorium stage.

Back then there was a draft and you weren’t thinking, “Gee, I wonder if I’ll decide to go over and fight.” You were thinking, “Gee, I hope that war is over before I turn 18, so I don’t have to go halfway around the world to get shot at.”

Well, Vietnam is over and the draft is over, but to the young people – and there were a lot – who attended Wednesday night’s Indoor Cost of Freedom Tribute opening ceremony at the Rochester American Legion, there was that same sense of grim reality for them to fathom: that young men and women of every generation –yes, even theirs – will die to keep this country free.

It was very special to see the respect and honor they showed veterans young and old, living and dead.

The Rochester American Legion should be proud of the program they put on.

As a Sons of the Legion, I was proud.

When my draft year came around, they used a lottery system. I drew a high number.

Some who drew a low one perhaps went to that far-off war and never came back.

The war today is not just in some far-off land. It is in New York City, at the Boston Marathon bombings, as well as a dozen countries halfway around the globe.

It is as amorphous and ubiquitous as a 12-headed serpent, and as virulent and heinous as any enemy this country has ever faced.

But with people, young and old, like were in that room last night, and those represented who died fighting, God willing, we shall always prevail.