Anyone who has ever seen the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery knows what an extraordinarily moving event it is. However, not everyone realizes that there is always a guard on duty and that they do that changing ceremony no less than once per hour, seven days a week, 365 days per year.

There's something about that formality and ritual and honor which appeals to something very basic within most of us, though I'm not sure what it is. From a pragmatic standpoint, one could easily view such a thing as silly sentimentality, or even an excercise in pointless tradition.

But I know that it's not. There's something deeper to it than that. Tradition and formality mean something. When in my mind I imagine that ceremony taking place during a driving rain storm at 3 am with not a sole civilian onlooker in the cemetery, my eyes fill with tears.



It's only by God's grace that I was born in this country. While some who hate their country (whether their hatred stems from a belief that it is not socialistic enough on the one side, or because they still lament the way the Constitutional Convention went on the other) will be mourning tommorrow, my family and I will be celebrating God's grace in allowing us to live in the greatest nation on earth.