Editor:

Ya-teeh-hey

Like to honor our warriors and their families:

Army Pfc. Lori Ann Piestewa, 23, of Tuba City;

Army Sgt. Lee D. Todacheene, 29, of Farmington

Army Pfc. Harry Shondee Jr., 19, of Ganado;

Marine Lance Cpl. Quinn A. Keith, 21, Page/Blanding

Marine Lance Cpl. Kevin B. Joyce, 19, of Klagetoh;

Army Sgt. Lyle Cambridge, 23, of Shiprock;

Army Sgt. Marshall A. Westbrook,43, of Farmington;

Army Sgt. Clifton Yazzie, 23, Upper Fruitland;

Army Spec. Troy Orion Tom, 21, Beclabito

Army Sergeant First Class Kenneth W. Westbrook; 41, Shiprock,

It's always an honor to rally and muster with comrades. Each veteran, each active soldier has a story, a memory to tell, an experience to share.

As veterans and soldiers, we are able to understand and visualize what the other Freedom Warrior is sharing and what our parents experienced as we served in military services.

The young soldier completes boot camp or while at the recruiting station realizes their freedom is now limited to protect freedom. Freedom is not free!

The soldier's life is now in a sacrificial mode. I mean, we learn that we may not come home, lose a limb, eye sight, suffer PTSD, or be ridiculed as a baby killer or a drunk and worthless. But we protected those freedom for them to say what they please — freedom of speech! Not to use this as an excuse to keep what some of us still do.

Our parents felt helpless as they watched us get on the plane after

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our military leave. They will watch the airplane as it leaves the airport runway. They watch as the plane becomes a dot in the sky but keep watching till the plane disappears in the sky. They walk back to the pickup in tears but proud. Some of us veterans are now experiencing the same. You see, freedom is not free because we soldiers affect our love ones and not just ourselves.

Remember the time you came home on leave? You walked over to the sheep corral and smelled the sheep chaa, horse chaa or the smell of the billy goat you use to ride as a child and get scolded for smelling like a billy goat at supper time?

It's funny, but we protected that freedom. That is in protection of the Navajo Nation sovereignty and of the United States of America. Some of our kids are riding rams and Billy goats today.

We as Americans Indians still have a lot to give to protect our homeland, jobs, health care, sheep and our way of life.

I ask all Americans to support out troops and veterans.

VERN ROY LEE

Fruitland