Veterans Day Speech

Recently my niece, Allison Ammons, was given an assignment in her 4th grade elementary class. The assignment was a writing prompt along the lines of, "Why are Veterans special?" That may not be the exact words used, but its close enough for this blog. After turning their assignments in they were graded and Allison was given the opportunity to read her speech during the school's Veterans Day celebration. In attendance that day, as a part of the Veterans program, was a representative of the Crestview Chamber of Commerce. He was so impressed he asked Allison permission to publish her speech in the local newspaper! So I figured if her speech is good enough for the paper, then its certainly good enough for this blog! When you read it, keep in mind that she had zero help from any adults, this was entirely her own words. Sometimes its refreshing to see life through the eyes of a child.

Veterans are very special people. They worked as hard as they could to give us freedom. If they had backed down when the going got tough life would be very different.

Life would be different if those men and women backed down because we wouldn't have the freedom to do anything. For example, we couldn't go to the church we wanted to go to like the pilgrims had to long ago. Or maybe we couldn't go to school because we had to work in factories all day to earn money for food. Also, we wouldn't be able to have freedom to speak what we wanted to speak about.

Did you ever think about how veterans risk their lives not only to save the lives of their friends and family, but the lives of kids and adults they don't even know? The also sacrifice their lives so the generations after us will be safe from the countries that don't want us to have freedom.

I am glad that I live in a country where fantastic men and women are willing to do anything to protect their country.

Allison Ammons

4th grade-Northwood Elementary