I remember the flag pole outside the rural school I went to. I remember on the windy days the brass buckle that held the flag hitting against the flag pole. The flag whipped in the wind and with the buckle hitting the pole, it sounded like a small bell being rung.

That was a long time ago but any sound close to that takes me back to that school yard where life was a lot less complicated.

Once I left that schoolyard life became complicated. Those complications have formed my soul into what some would define as complex. I doubt we choose to live a life full of color. To experience all the wind has to offer. To embrace our senses in ways we never thought imaginable. To stand in that schoolyard with the world before us and be mesmorized by the sound of that little bell being rung, feels like a lifetime ago. A life that seems to have found me in that schoolyard and pulled me into its complexities.

On this day we as a society seem to need a reminder to thank and honor those who left that schoolyard and found a bell much larger and louder than the one in that schoolyard. A bell that defines the people we become.

It’s acceptance that we all seek. To be accepted for who we are, what we stand for, what we have done, and the complex soul that drive us.

When I see a veteran I realize at one point they were standing in their own schoolyard mesmorized by that bell of life that makes people search for a life full of color. A life that whips in the wind, stands still, and represents the raw definition of service. Through a life full of color, a life full of sevice, and that bell small or large we are all still just kids in the schoolyard. We all just want to be accepted for who we are and what we have done.

From The Roadmap Company happy Veterans Day. May you stand amongst the tall pines, soak up the sun, embrace the wind, and that bell in the distance guide you back to your own schoolyard.