In several of my articles I rather unabashedly lampooned the current political climate, state politics and even the history of our country. While some of you out there might think that I am a bleeding heart liberal with no morals and no love for this country, I want to state for the record that I absolutely love this country. It is a beautiful place that is still trying to figure out how to effectively run a democratic republic. So even if as I continue to point out flaws in what is going on in the nation today, I want you to know that there is one topic that I cannot tear into the military.

This is what I want to focus on this week, because as I grew up around military families I got to experience a sense of belonging more pure than any other experience in my life.

I grew up as an Army brat meaning my father was in the Army, and as a result, my life from birth until just before high school was spent in and around army bases. As a kid, army bases felt safe. From the fifth to seventh grade I could go hang out with friends at any time around Fort Monroe, VA, and my parents would know that I was safe as long as I stayed on the grounds of the base.

I was friends with the children of men and women of all ranks, races, faiths, creeds and codes. Soldiers are not all right winged gun toters. They are just people like you and me, but what sets them apart is that they decided to dedicate themselves to the defense of this country. Because of this, everyone sets aside their personal opinions about politics in order to serve a purpose that they know is greater than themselves.

It was a pretty amazing place to grow up.

I do include the families when I say, everyone. During my father's years in the Army, he served along the Fulda Gap in the Cold War, which was a lowland that the Soviets could have driven tanks through. He served in the Gulf War as an Armor officer. For one year he was a liaison to the Republic of Korea while my mother, sister and I still lived in Pennsylvania. His last time serving abroad was when he went to Pakistan during the War on Terror in order to help train the Pakistani Army.

During all of these conflicts and deployments he could rely on the fact that we, his family, were going to support him and continue supporting the other families that were dealing with the same thing we were. That is what binds the families of soldiers together. We didn't care about where they had come from. We didn't care what race they were. We all grew together and knew that at a moment's notice any other family could come help out.

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This is my hope for what the rest of the country can do. I hope that one day we can all come together and realize that as Americans we can stand together and make the country a better place for all. You don't need to serve in the armed forces in order to have a sense of belonging to this country. If you currently do or have served, then I thank you for your service and sacrifices.

If you are considering serving, then I respect your decision and hope that you too find solidarity in the great community of the military.

For those of you who are not going to serve, I am not going to tell you that you are a coward or are unpatriotic. I have no plans to join.

What I do hope for those who will not serve is that you do at least support the men and women in the armed forces. Though you may not agree with the military actions this country involves itself in, remember that those serving are people just like you and me.

We need to support each other.

We are all Americans.