This post is not going to be about Composites per se, and it might be a bit shorter than some of my other posts. What I want to do here is to post a remembrance and heartfelt thank you to all of our active duty, retired, and lost in battle servicemen and women. All of them deserve our deeply felt gratitude for putting their lives on the line to defend this wonderful country that we have – The United States of America.
Yes, our current politics is divided worse than it has been for some time, and yes, there are a number of problems that at this point seem intractable, but this is still the greatest nation that the earth has ever seen. And the people that serve and have served in our Armed Forces deserve all of the gratitude we can muster because they allow us to freely argue amongst ourselves without the fear of being attacked by another country or people.
I also wanted to share a little bit about myself in this post. While I am a pacifist at heart and abhor even the idea of war, I have spent the better part of my career working with the Department of Defense. There are several engineers and scientists that are of like mind to myself who also abhor even the thought of war.
We do what we do because we have a special set of skills that can be brought to bear to develop the technologies and materiel that our armed forces need to stay ahead of those that might want to do us harm, and that keep all of our soldiers and sailors safe and as much out of harm’s way as possible. It gives me quite a bit of satisfaction to do what I do because I know that some of the things that I have developed over the years and that have been implemented on the battlefield by our troops have allowed them to stay alive and defend not only themselves and their comrades, but also our country.
And, of course, this is one of the roots of my initial interest in composites, and why I have become what I have become, something of a composites expert (at work they call me a Subject Matter Expert). Since I was introduced to composites early in my career, as well as the needs of our Armed Forces, I immediately saw how I could contribute to lowering the foot soldier’s load, increasing the standoff range of our artillery and tank ammunition, making ships and submarines lighter weight so that they could carry more as well as have longer range, and a whole host of other things that I have worked on over the years and contributed what I could using the gifts that were given to me – my brain being the greatest gift that my parents could bestow on me.
Finally, I want to again thank all of our current servicemen and women, as well as those that have already completed their service to our nation and are retired veterans. And, I also want all of the families of our fallen comrades who paid the ultimate price my express thanks and gratitude for your sacrifice as well. It is after all the loved ones that remain behind who have to deal with the loss and grief of their loved one when one of our brave servicemen or servicewomen pays with their life in defense of our nation.
Thank you all and we honor your memory on this day and every day that we are alive and our nation remains safe from those that would do us harm.
Ned Patton, Ph.D., P.E. - Author, Scientist, Engineer
Great post.