Observing Veteran’s Day

THE WORLD CHANGED, seemingly forever, Eighteen years ago, after terrorists crashed passenger planes into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, the Pentagon in Washington D.C., and a remote field in Pennsylvania. In stark contrast to the divisive, toxic mood of today’s public discourse, in the autumn of 2001 Americans came together in a demonstration that we were, indeed, The United States of America.

When we identified those responsible for planning and carrying out the heinous September Eleventh attacks, there was almost universal support from American citizens and most of the world for the military response our nation undertook in early 2002. That response became the war in Afghanistan, a war that still has not ended and which launched a global War on Terror. Very quickly, a second front was opened in Iraq. While the Iraq campaign had less support from within and from outside the country, it still required the full and unquestioning commitment of the service members of every branch of our Armed Forces. Hundreds of thousands of our brave men and women in the military shipped out for hostile lands and tours of duty with unknown end dates.

At the time, we wanted to do whatever we could to not just “support the troops,” but to provide a little taste of home for the Texas members of our forces that were serving.

What we came up with was an offer of free subscriptions for any active military personnel.

We contacted Base Exchanges, local USO offices and other support facilities to make the offer available to any interested active member of the military services. At the peak of the program we were sending thousands of copies of TF&G to service members in Afghanistan and Iraq.

As the numbers of troops deployed in both theaters of war declined, so did the numbers of active military subscriptions. We discontinued the program in 2007. But even though our troops are not engaged in huge numbers on desert and mountain battlefields, they remain on high alert, and many are still deployed in unfriendly regions. Plus, there are now millions of veterans of the nearly two-decade-old war, many of them Texans.

This Veterans Day, we have decided to revive our offer, and this time will include not just active service members but veterans as well.

We will provide free subscriptions to the first 1,500 active or veteran service members to submit the form below (free DIGITAL SUBSCRIPTIONS will be provided to ALL interested active service or veterans).

This is a small gesture on our part, given what these brave and selfless soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and members of the Coast Guard and National Guard have done for us. But we know from the experience of 2001-2007 that, if they are hunters or anglers, active members of the military on duty tours in far off, perhaps hostile areas, appreciate a glimpse of what’s going on in the outdoors back here in Texas. For them, and for those who have come home from such service, it is our way of saying “Thank You for your service.”                      

 

E-mail Roy at rneves@fishgame.com and Ardia at aneves@fishgame.com

 

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