October 2001 President's Corner

Bob Schultz '71, USNAAA Atlanta Chapter President

Freedom is Not Free

In the past few weeks, since the attack on America on September 11^th, I have had time to take notice of the many things around me that have changed in some way.

Of course, there are the many obvious ones that are hard to miss. People are depressed, afraid, sorrowful, concerned about the future, and more subdued than normal in going about their daily lives. And then there are the physical signs. The empty airports, the stock market reaction, the closed businesses, the layoffs and lost jobs, the pile of rubble where two proud towers once stood, the gaping wound in the side of the Pentagon building, and the thousands of lost lives.

However, I want to bring your attention to a much more subtle change that I’ve noticed in the halls of the corporate offices of Scientific-Atlanta where I work. This change, though it saddens me, also gives me great hope for the future.

In the past few years, I have made a habit of posting various military graphics on the bulletin boards in the break rooms on each floor in my particular building. I also usually post one just outside my office. I post them on Veterans Day, on Memorial Day, and on June 6^th (D-Day), each year. They consist of a collage of various military graphics that I’ve collected and arranged on a page, usually surrounding a central graphic. The central graphic simply says:

"Freedom is Not Free"

Sometimes it’s text alone on a plain background, other times its in the foreground over a bald eagle or an American flag.

I think that probably the one with the most visual impact is the one I post on D-Day. The “Freedom is Not Free” graphic is at the top followed below by several pictures taken by military photographers during the actual invasion of Normandy. There is a trench full of soldiers bandaged from head to foot from their just-received wounds, a picture of Higgins boats coming ashore, a picture of soldiers running up the beach dragging a wounded comrade behind them, and a picture of fallen soldiers being attended by medics. The most haunting however, is a picture taken from the back of Higgins boat with the landing ramp down, having just emptied its complement of soldiers into the water. All that you see is a dark foreboding view of the beach in the distance and the soldiers moving slowly toward it. It looks, for all purposes, like the gateway to hell itself. I can only imaging that for those veterans it surely must have felt that way as well.

For a week or two after I post these pictures I take note of the reactions that I see and hear from various co-workers. Those who stop and take time to reflect upon the images have been folks primarily in their fifties and older. It was a rare occasion when a person in their twenties or thirties would comment or even notice at all. When they did, I would usually find out that their father had served in a branch of the armed forces.

In the past few weeks there has been a dramatic turnaround in this trend. My “Freedom is Not Free” graphic has met with comments from people of all age groups. The most vigorous and heart felt of those comments now coming from those folks who I consider young!

On September 11^th, a new generation of Americans had the true meaning of the phrase “Freedom is Not Free” suddenly and abruptly forced into the very core of their consciousness, along with the rest of us.

As I said earlier, while it saddens me that such a hard lesson had to be learned, it also gives me great hope for the future. I think that all Americans now stand more united in this country than we have been for many years in the recent past. Look around you and just try to count the number of American flags you see flying from every possible post.

God bless America, and God bless our troops deploying the Middle-East.