This is a paper that Monroe Middle School 8th grader Jayme Laney wrote in honor of Veterans Day.  It is being entered into a patriotic writing contest.  Given the events in France on Friday, its words take on a far more important, urgent tone. Thank you, Jayme, for sharing your thoughts.

 Freedom.  The choice everyone wants to have.  The most priceless thing in the whole universe.  Even though people want it, that doesn’t mean that people understand it.  So that sparks a question, what does freedom mean?

          Freedom means to have your own opinion, your own house, your own life.  Freedom is not something that should be taken for granted.  But we all forget who have which brought this freedom to us and fought for it.  We are using the freedom that our brave and fierce soldiers strive for.  This luxury is truly something worth fighting for.

          But what if we did not have our soldiers at all, no one to fight for us.  That means no freedom, no luxury.  For instance, my uncle was a paratrooper in World War II.  What would America be today if he had not parachuted onto the legendary beaches of Normandy, June 6, 1944.

          You might not have had the freedom or ability to have an opinion about these words I’m saying.  You couldn’t talk.  You couldn’t walk.  You couldn’t think for yourself.  You would be a puppet for a tyranny government and would not like any second of it.  In this world today, we still have places under abusive control.  The world would be a better place if we all had freedom.  But unfortunately, the world we live in today would fall apart in riots and protests if we all combined into one government.  Thus this paper concludes that I shall – we shall – declare that freedom is the most honorable piece of our country and society today.  But the most important thing of all is to not take freedom for gated, not something to be abused, and not something that everyone is handed on a silver platter.  Because our country – our lives – were based on liberty and freedom.