Today our nation pauses to honor the men and women who have worn the uniform as members of our United States Armed Forces. Veterans Day is a day for gratitude, and I want to begin by offering mine.

This day has much personal meaning for me. My late Dad was a decorated war hero in the Second World War, having commanded an infantry company in France, surviving a near fatal wound suffered on Thanksgiving Day, 1944. My younger brother was an Army lawyer for the 101^st Airborne Division, and his Commanding Officer later became Judge Advocate General for the entire U.S. Army, after which—perhaps only by sheer coincidence—he became the chief Clerk of the U.S. Supreme Court. He held that office (and welcomed us warmly) on each of our three appearances at our nation’s highest court in defense of the racketeering-extortion case that the abortionists and the National Organization for Women brought against our pro-life clients late in the last century and early during this century—NOW v. Scheidler.

As for myself, as an ROTC graduate from Notre Dame, after a three-year deferment for law school, I served on active duty as a U.S. Army Captain in what was then the embattled Republic of South Vietnam from 1969 through most all of 1970. When I made it back home to Chicago in time for Christmas, I’d gained a far deeper, personal, and eyewitness grasp of what freedom costs—about how so many of my fellow soldiers, sailors, and airmen had given so much more, and far too often their very lives, to secure it.  

That lesson has stayed with me throughout each of my later years, covering almost the entirety of my legal career. Indeed, those poignant memories of others’ self-sacrifice were very much in mind and weighed on my heart when I volunteered to defend pro-lifers against those antitrust, racketeering, and extortion charges back in 1986 and later founded our non-profit public interest law firm in 1998, the Thomas More Society.

I am hardly alone as the only veteran here. Other members of our Thomas More Society team also have served in our Armed Forces before joining in our legal defense work—in the Army, Navy, and Air Force, either as officers or in enlisted service. They bring the discipline, courage, and devotion learned in uniform to all they do here in furtherance of life, family, and freedom.

Every service member swears an oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” In a real but somewhat different way, we veterans now fulfill that oath as ardently and faithfully as when in military service.  

For those of us who once swore this patriotic oath, the battlefield has changed, but the mission has not. Today we both defend and enforce the freedoms our servicemen and women fought for: the freedom of a sidewalk counselor to offer hope to expectant mothers on a public sidewalk; the right of parents to guide the upbringing of their own children; and the liberty of people of faith to live out their convictions absent fear of government interference or punishment.

President Ronald Reagan said it with lasting eloquence: “Freedom is a fragile thing and it's never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by way of inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people.”

To every veteran who reads this letter, thank you.

To the millions of Americans who have served, in war and in peace, at home and abroad, and to the families who waited and prayed for them, our nation owes a debt that can never be fully repaid. Your sacrifice secured the freedoms that my colleagues and I are privileged to defend in court every day.

Please join me today in honoring a veteran you know, and in praying for those still serving, for their families, and for those who never came home.