Today is Veteran’s Day in the US and Remembrance Day in Canada, and I wanted to be sure to thank the military who have bravely defended my country, protected my family and way of life and helped to provide me the opportunity to be free to choose to be a business owner. There is so much focus these days on the economy and keeping your business profitable that we can forget the vast number of military men and women who are serving and have served to protect us. However, it wasn’t so long ago that I watched the Twin Towers in New York City on 9-11 come crashing down and I recognized that in a moment the day to day business of doing business was meaningless when your life and family are threatened.

I was just a kid during the Vietnam War and I had an older brother who had friends who had been drafted and killed in Vietnam and those who were not killed were never the same again. There were so many people who treated the military poorly back then and felt that we had no business being in Vietnam. I was too young to really understand the political issues, but I knew that the older boys being drafted didn’t have much say in whether they served. Their only other choice other than being recruited was to leave the country and go to Canada to avoid the draft. Today you see many of the men who served during that awful war and they share how their life was forever affected by what they observed, but were saddened by the lack of our support when they returned. Thankfully, those same Veterans are here today to make sure people recognize and honor our military for their service and courage. And, as a business owner and a mother I wanted to be sure to always say “thank you” to the brave men and women who protect us while we sleep and make it so that we can have days in which we are so busy in the day to day operations of our businesses that we forget that it was only a few years ago that the world stood still and watched the planes take down the twin towers of the World Trade Center and crash in to the Pentagon killing so many innocent people.

I want to give thanks to all the branches of the military and to the firemen and police that protect my business daily!

All my best to your success,
~Charlene

“Success wears the Purple Diamond!”