"The most important political office is that of the private citizen."  ~Louis Brandeis

 I'm wearing a sticker proudly on my cherished baseball cap. "I made freedom count, I Voted" it says.
Today is a landmark day for my husband and me. We waited in the early election lines to cast our votes for political office for our nation and our community.
 We have always voted before, but via absentee ballot. The opportunity to vote absentee is allowed to military service members and their families. For the past 17 years we have voted this way, for 7 of those years the ballots came to overseas addresses where we lived. This year we knew we had to do things differently.
 Vic was in Iraq when the first elections took place. The pictures of the brave citizens voting and dipping their fingers in ink still stand vivid in my mind. He saw first hand and I felt it, the dedication it took for that country to exercise their rights to vote. They took their lives in their own hands by showing up at the polls, and they endangered their livelihood by marking themselves with ink.
 After four years away we decided to vote in person. Vic and I joined the line wrapping around our local courthouse and waited. We listened to the conversations, we experienced the campaigning on the courtyard lawn, we experienced the opportunity to fill out our ballots with other citizens. It was amazing.
 The diversity in our line was staggering. Ten people before us was a retired Green Beret, you knew him by his tattoo, and by his demeanor. Behind me was a school teacher for an inner city school. In front of us was an elderly lady and her daughter. Volunteers manned the polls, politicians shook hands as we passed.
 This is an historic day in our lives. Our forefathers fought so we could have this freedom, a freedom that many in other countries only dream about. Today, as a citizen, I made Freedom Count.