Childhood Friends and American Heroes

I really struggled to come up with a blog topic to share with all of you today. One could say that I was having a bit of a creative/writer's block for the entire day. By day's end, I had succumbed to writing a post about my Thanksgiving vacation with plenty of inconsequential details on how I sat on the couch in my boxers while killing house flies. I'm pretty sure that this is something you REALLY didn't want to read about. Right?

So, on the way into work tonight, I had a game plan: 

1.) Finish writing my Thanksgiving blog post on boxer shorts, house flies, and the Shawshank Redemption

2.) Give some more thought on why I shouldn't waste time on writing a blog post that I wasn't really interested in

3.) Procrastinate on my blog post because it just sucked all together

Of course, this game plan was so close to being executed before I entered the station and saw that I had a package in my mailbox from a familiar hand. 

As I walked into the studio, I showed Fitz this box that I had gotten from my childhood best friend, Kevin.  In the moment that I told Fitz that Kevin is one of our country's servicemen, he instantly knew what I had received.  

To keep this short and sweet, I received one of the greatest gifts never to be asked for from one of our own military servicemen--and my best friend.  An American flag that was flown over Afghanistan on a harrier.  I couldn't be more humbled to receive something like this from a Marine--let alone my best friend.

Even after Thanksgiving, you can never be too thankful to know that your friend has survived a battle where he nearly died.  You are thankful that you are able to share more moments with him.  You are thankful that he will be able to share memories with his wife and children. You are thankful that he has come back home for the holidays.

Thank you Marines/AirForce/Army/Navy for your service!  And THANK YOU, Kevin. You know I got your back.

Shan

P.S. The avatar for this blog post is a picture of Kevin from when we were kids back in the day. Even then, we listened to KUPD!