Money Blue Book

Today I was relaxing at home on a lazy Saturday afternoon, tinkering on the computer and watching my weekend mixed martial art fighting shows on TV when suddenly there was a tremendous flash of light from the window, followed by the wallop of a floor vibrating thunder crack. Since I was on the computer, I quickly checked the weather page and confirmed that there was definitely a major thunderstorm heading my way. Weather reports predicted a heavy storm system to move through my neighborhood during the early to late afternoon period with the potential to bring forth severe isolated thunderstorms and heavy rainfall mixed with strong winds, with torrential downpours heavy at times. There was even an online warning issued for frequent lightening and even a small tornado watch. The mere prospect of tornadoes has always baffled me. I live in the Maryland suburban area of Washington D.C. and have never encountered a tornado before during my entire lifetime in this area. There have been limited reports of one or two tiny tornadoes touching down in years past, but their appearances are rare and usually sighted in the less populated outskirts of the central city. The metro D.C. area is simply too urbanized and populated with tall buildings and infrastructure for a substantial twister to develop. However, we do get pretty powerful thunderstorms and heavy rain showers at times – and that’s where my dirty, dust covered car comes in.

Thunderstorms and Rain Showers Signal The Tantalizing Opportunity For Me To Get A Free Instant Car Wash

The moment I heard the thunder cracks and verified the imminent rainstorms about to brew, I immediately sprung to action. I quickly got dressed and made a beeline for my apartment building’s covered parking garage where my car is parked. I jumped in and went for a drive – to nowhere in particular but just to drive and keep my car exposed to the weather. In fact, my whole purpose for driving was to keep my car out in the open and under the wet and wild fury of mother nature’s latest thunderstorm for a free car wash.

Am I the only one who does this? Some people have the spring and summer time luxury of outdoor parking spots out in the open for a free car washing everytime it rains. As my car is parked indoors in a neighborhood where reserved parking is otherwise difficult to find, I have to manually move it outside during anticipated rainstorms to get that momentary free water jet splashing. This time in particular I had to make sure I seized the opportunity. It’s been too long since my car had a decent wash. As I rarely drive due to my habit of taking public transportation, and my recent drives have consisted of long inter-state treks to upstate New York during sunny weather, my car has gradually been covered with a layer of extended highway driving dust and dotted with splattered bugs on the front fender and windshield. However, taking the opportunity to purposely drive my car around to receive the brunt of mother nature’s newest heavy thunderstorm took care of much of the grime covering it. As I drove around and ran intentional errands during the furious rainstorm, my car was easily washed and scrubbed clean by the heavy rain water and whipping winds. It felt great to save some money and even conserve some natural water resources at the same time. While saving $10-15 by not having to pay for a professional car wash may not seem like much, it still felt good not having to pay money for a luxury convenience I could otherwise obtain for free.

Purposely Going Out Of My Way To Drive My Car Outside During A Rain Storm – Frugal Or Cheap?

Some people might say I’m being super cheap by opting to drive around in my car aimlessly or purposefully running errands during a heavy rainstorm to get a free car wash, but I disagree. It’s all about my priorities. I would rather spend those extra few dollar savings on other things. Even using the sum towards a nice tasty smoothie drink would be better use of that little bit of money in my opinion. It may not be a lot, but it’s all about the gradual and long term aggregate effects of practicing such frugal, money saving habits. Besides, I enjoy driving in the rain. There’s nothing like watching mother nature in all her glory and marveling at the pattering rain, flying leaves from the tree branches, and furious winds. Maybe it’s my optimistic and sunny side up type of personality, but whenever I hear news about an approaching severe thunderstorm, I immediately think of free car washes. So long as the storm doesn’t have the potential to cause major damage on my driving route through downed power lines or falling tree limbs, I prefer to look at the money saving benefits of such natural phenomenons. Vehicle safety issues or on-the-road driving dangers during heavy thunderstorms have never been serious concerns for me since I always stick to major local roads or wide highways during thunderstorms where errant tree limbs or falling debris are less hazardous problems.

Car washes are one of those ordinary month to month or periodically recurring common expenses that I try to eliminate or minimize from my budget as much as possible. Like personal hair cuts for myself or my morning Starbucks white chocolate mocha habit, I see car washes as a nuisance when it comes to frugality and financial planning. Unfortunately, it’s one of the necessary downsides of owning and driving a car – you have to wash it once in a while. While there are many car lovers, gear heads, and auto-philes out there who spend countless hours and manpower effort washing, waxing, and polishing their beloved vehicles’ body work, and spending endless time fiddling with engine tune ups from personal home garage setups that would make Jiffy Lube or Pennzoil jealous, I’m definitely not one of them. I treat my 2004 Honda Accord simply as what it is – an inanimate dinosaur-fuel consuming contraption that gets me from point A to point B. I use it to commute to work, shop for groceries, and occasionally take road trips. I don’t see my car as a status symbol nor would I would ever want it to be one. Is it really worth paying $40,000 to $70,000 for a brand new, luxury high end sedan or sports car for just that momentary bragging right and the ability to show off to your friends, family, or even strangers on the street? Personally, I would much rather take that extra $20,000 or $50,000 fancy car savings and deposit the money into a high interest savings account or invest the sum into my Roth IRA retirement account to grow it for the future. Every little bit helps, even money saved by taking advantage of free rain-inspired car washes – it’s all about the long term aggregate savings over time.

Updated List Of Citi Thank You Codes For Free ThankYou Network Points Below

Back in the day, cash back credit cards were all the rage as their rebate offers provided the highest purchase incentives for cardholders. But as the U.S. economy has soured in recent years and the mortgage backed credit crisis has worsened, credit card companies have joined the legions of credit-related industries hurt by the downturn. Despite the need to make changes in the new economical climate, credit card issuers still continue to offer lucrative incentive rewards and rebates to attract new customers and encourage continuous credit activity. However, such riskier times have compelled them to modify and scale back their credit card purchase incentives to greatly favor point reward programs over straight cash back. By offering purchase reward points redeemable for free merchandise, free airline tickets, or free gift cards, credit card companies are at least able to lessen their promotional losses by plowing some rebate money back to merchants that they have special partnership agreements with instead of just giving money back to the customer. This shift towards promoting reward points instead of cash back has lead to a rise in rebate earning percentages for reward programs offering points, and a gradual decrease in earning percentages for credit card programs offering cash back.

However, over the years, Citibank has consistently remained one of my better credit card reward issuers. When they came out and started promoting the Thank You Points Network for their banks and credit cards, I did my research and ultimately embraced its usage. While the point-based program will never beat the versatility and convenience of good ole cash back rewards, the Citi Thank You rewards program is still a good silver medal, second place choice. Just for your reference, here are a few of the prominent Citi Thank You credit cards that I have in my wallet. Each of them earns points when you use them to make qualified purchases.

1. Citi Premier Pass Card Elite – The Premier Pass Elite is one of the best travel reward credit card options out there. With the card you’ll also get 20,000 free bonus points after $600 in purchases made within 3 months of account opening.

For those who want to know my strategy to maximizing the amount of Citibank Thank You Network reward points that I earn over the course of a year, here are the steps and things that I recommend. Some are basic credit card usage philosophies while others are tips on ways to make the most of what you earn out of everything you do.

1) Be A Loyal User Of Citi Credit Cards That Offer Thank You Network Purchase Reward Incentives

First of all, before you even think of using a Citibank credit card that offers rebate rewards or airline miles (or any credit card for that matter), you must promise yourself to always pay off your credit card balance in full every month. Remember, the more you spend on credit card late fees and interest, the less your reward miles or reward redemptions are worth. The goal is to maximize your savings and get the most bang for your bank. The fewer purchase fees and the fewer interest charges you pay, the better.

- Focus On Reward Network Points That Can Be Pooled

In the credit card rewards money making, rebate earning business, loyalty pays dividends. While I’m a holder of a large number of credit cards, I don’t necessarily use them all. Some like my expired 0% balance transfer credit cards – I don’t even use anymore since their introductory interest rate benefits have since long expired. To maximize my money, I try to focus my efforts on 1-2 credit card reward programs that offer me the best earning and redemption results. As a general background matter, the more credit cards you use the fewer points you’ll ultimately earn on each. Especially for cards that require a certain level of point accumulation before reward redemption, using too many reward cards may spread your usage out too thin. The greatest exception to the rule is participation in a credit card reward program like the Citibank Thank You Network that allows you to combine points from several different cards into one shared rewards account.

- Save Up Your Credit Card Purchase Points For Higher Value Rewards That Offer More Bang For Your Buck

To maximize your Citi Thank You rewards, you should resist the urge to spend your reward points right away. Remember, the reward redemption options are offered based on a tier system. The best point to rewards ratio will obviously occur at the higher value, more expensive to redeem reward choices. As I note in my analysis of redeeming Citibank Thank You gift cards, the highest value redemptions will offer you the best conversion rates – essentially fewer points needed for the same equivalent reward. The lower the redemption cost, the more points you’ll have left over to redeem for other rewards. So save up your points for the bigger prizes. After all, why would you want to swap your points incrementally through out the year for 10 gift cards worth $20 each for a total value of $200, when you can save up until you have the same total number of points, and then redeem them for a higher value $250 or $300 gift card? They require the same number of points, except the difference is that by waiting and saving, you can potentially walk away with a much sweeter reward.

Another great Thank You reward redemption option is to redeem points for free Citi airline flights through Citibank’s fixed flight option. The Thank You Network fixed flight option offers one of the best redemption ratios for free airline tickets around for any credit card and banking reward program.

You can also earn bonus Thank you points for shopping with partner merchants through the network’s website, but personally, I think you can get better reward and rebate savings through other online shopping sites instead.

2) Earn Extra Free Thank You Network Points By Registering With and Using Expedia

If you’re like many people who rely on special online travel search engines to locate and book their travel reservations for airlines, cruises, car rentals, or hotel stays, you’ll definitely want to take your Thank You Network account and register it with Expedia. All you have to do is enroll your Citi Thank You account with Expedia to earn 1 bonus point for every $1 spent on hotels, vacation packages, activities totaling $50 or more, and cruises. To earn points on flights, you need to add an activity of $50 or more, or a hotel stay to your travel itinerary. The nice part is that you don’t even need to necessarily use a Citibank Thank You Network credit card to make your purchases. Once you’ve enrolled and linked up your Expedia account with the Thank You network, you are free to use any credit card or other valid form of payment to make your purchase. If you’re smart and savvy, you might consider using an airline credit card to book your flight travel plans to earn additional rewards. Not only will you earn bonus frequent flyer travel miles by using your airline credit card, you’ll also receive Thank You reward purchase points through your Expedia-Thank You Network linked account. Not a bad deal.

3) Enroll Your Citibank Checking and Savings Accounts (If Any) Into The Thank You Network

Other than through the usage of Citibank credit cards that offer ThankYou rewards, each month you can also earn bonus Thank You points for having and using certain other Citibank products and services (view Thank You points chart according to Citibank account package). Such options include opening and enrolling your qualified Citibank savings or checking accounts with the Thank You network program or simply by enrolling your Citibank ATM/debit card with the program to earn points everytime you use it. By enrolling your debit card with the rewards program, it’s like having a reward credit card at your disposal without any of the downsides of credit card usage that you may otherwise fear (the whole credit card debt thing). Thus the more Citibank relationship accounts you have and use, the more points you may receive, up to the annual cap limit that applies. For your reference, other Citibank branded products and services that may help you get more points include online bill payments, direct deposits, savings accounts and money markets, home equity lines and loans, mortgages, personal loans, and CDs.

If you’re interested in opening a new Citibank checking or savings account, you may want to review some of the promotional Citibank sign-up bonuses currently available. If you qualify, you might be able to get some free money as a new customer.

4) Manually Purchase Your Citi Thank You Network Points Directly

The Thank You Network actually allows customers to purchase Thank You points directly if they so choose, which is a helpful option for those who are close to having enough points to qualify for the reward redemption of their choice. Under the purchase option, for $25 charged to your credit card, you can purchase 1,000 Thank You points, limited to a purchase cap of 30,000 points a year. If you don’t mind paying money for points instead of earning them through ordinary credit card earning usage, then this may be a nice option to consider. The points purchase option offers an exceptionally awesome dollar to points ratio. With most of the Citi Thank You credit cards, you get at most – 3 points for each $1 spent. With the purchase option you get 40 points per $1 spent. Plus, you have the potential to earn the usual extra Thank You Network purchase rewards if you charge the $25 acquisition cost to your Citi credit card.

5) Take Advantage Of Promo Offer Codes For Free Citi Thank You Network Points

This short list of free Citi thank you reward point offers are subject to change at any time as such free promotions come and go as people become aware of them. Most of them can be discovered and found through popular online discussion boards from sites such as Fat Wallet that discuss online bargains and deals.

Qualifying for these instant free Thank You points is easy. All you have to do is visit the promotional page for Citi Thank You points, log into your account, and enter your desired promotional code. I recommend typing in each of the following promotional codes as you may get lucky and qualify for them all – it certainly doesn’t hurt to try. After entering in the free Thank You promo code, you should be able to verify the receipt of extra reward points in your account of 100 additional points or whatever the code was worth. If someone or some company is giving away free reward points, why not jump at the chance – particularly when there is no extra contract to sign or obligation to commit to.

Updated List Of Free Citibank Thank You Network Promo Codes

Yes they are only technically worth $1.00 each, but like loose coins that surprise you at the bottom of your sofa cushions, they are points you didn’t have before but now do! Are you feeling lucky yet?

• CITICCI508IN (100 Free Points)

• DPR1CDW408WK (100 Free Points)

I love using eBay. I’ve been a busy eBayer since the online auction service opened for business in the late 1990’s, and over the years I’ve gotten my bargain grubby hands on quite a few deal finds. However, back in the beginning there was less competition among buyers and sellers vying for a piece of the lucrative eBay pie. With less auction and savvy awareness on the part of the general public during eBay’s infancy, deals were easier to be had.

Back in the good old eBay days, one of my best past success stories was bidding and winning online auction sales for D.C. Metro SmarTrip cards. People in the Maryland, Washington D.C. and Virginia metro area use prepaid magnetic debit cards to ride the subway train to work in our nation’s capital. When the SmarTrip cards were first implemented on the subway system in 2004, I think I was one of the early few to immediately turn to eBay to buy subway cards in bulk denomination for maximum arbitrage savings. At the time, the whole concept of buying subway cards was still in its infancy so there was less competition for them online. Most of the SmarTrip sellers were federal government workers looking to unload their government issued cards to eBay buyers and make some money in the process (they probably weren’t authorized or permitted to do that of course). But regardless of the legality or morality on their part, I was happy to buy them. Since I worked in D.C. at the time and commuted downtown on a daily basis, I needed a huge supply of them at all times. Due to the lack of bidding competition, I frequently won for 40-60% off the face value, although I had to bid on higher value cards to maximize my cost savings. For example, for cards valued at $300, I usually only paid $140 for them. My auction bidding success lasted a few brief years, but as the years went by and the number of worldwide eBay users grew, many of the inherent market efficiencies were ultimately plugged up, causing bid prices to soar and eBay savings to become less and less. Nowadays, it’s hard to get any type of significant savings anymore as eBay auction prices usually get bid up to or close to the fair market value, negating the awesome bargains I use to enjoy.

By Bidding For Misspelled eBay Phrases and Keyword Typos, It Is Still Possible To Get Great Deals and Bargains

Over the years, eBay has continuously modified its search algorithm and implemented system changes to weed out arbitrage type opportunities that some suggest hurt the integrity of the eBay search engine and business model. However, while eBay may try to take measures to ensure bidding fairness and listing accuracy, it can really only do so much. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. There will always be absent minded people out there, and there’s little that big brother eBay can do to stem their perpetual cluelessness. Which brings me to the purpose of this article – One very interesting area of eBay that is still prone to arbitrage profit and bargains is the area of eBay typos and eBay auction spelling mistakes. While there are many factors that influence how an eBay product listing ends such as auction title, description, timing, number of eBay reviews, and the type of photos displayed, one critical human element that is often overlooked by sellers is spelling accuracy.

The power of eBay is that it is currently the most popular and dominating online auction service in the world and has the capability to bring in a significant number of buyers and sellers together into one open marketplace where products can be exchanged for maximum gain and efficiency. Because of the sheer number of potential buyers and sellers, as well as eyes and ears so to speak, there is little room for inefficiencies to flourish. Even expensive laptop computers valued at $3,000 for example that start the bidding process at $1.00 will absolutely bid up to its fair market value by the close of the bidding period. Even the concept of eBay auction sniping is already known by most people. Sniping, or the process of using special software to fire in your online auction bid at the very last second to keep bidding war competition to a minimum used to work well in the past, but nowadays it seems like everyone uses it on every auction as well. Thus the notion that one can somehow catch an arbitrage or significantly underpriced deal now as a buyer is difficult due to the inherent scale and efficiency of today’s eBay market place.

But this all changes drastically when the market place is altered in significant fashion. When the auction seller places an auction advertisement and fails to ensure correct spelling in the auction title or description, particularly for key phrases that denote what he or she is selling, this creates an inefficiency that is just begging to be exploited. This is a critical mistake because such typos prevent prospective bidders and buyers from being able to find your auction at all. Misspelled keywords in the auction title essentially eliminate the buyer and seller equilibrium usually inherent in eBay. Because the vast majority of prospective eBay buyers find their item by typing in keywords into the eBay search form, such spellings errors have the potential to make or break the final sale. However, due to the sheer size of the eBay marketplace, even such spelling error bargains are bound to be snapped up eventually, but there are simply more spelling mistake and eBay typo deals to be had than that with correctly spelled and properly placed auctions ads.

It’s clear eBay has at least recognized that spelling mistakes and typos are causing a portion of sellers to wind up with much fewer bids and lower bid values than they ought to have. While they have permitted a substantial number of eBay buyers and bidders such as myself to take walk away with nice bargains we would otherwise not have gotten, eBay doesn’t seem entirely committed to stamp out this little shopping loophole. While eBay has installed spell checkers and automated keyword suggestion tools into their online auction software, there is only so much the company can really do to force absent minded sellers to comply. Many grammatically-challenged eBay merchants simply continue to disregard the importance of spelling accuracy. Auction listings containing multiple spelling errors and typos continue to litter the eBay marketplace, to the delight of many potential bidders who can find them. I’ve been on both sides of the eBay auction, as both a seller and as a buyer. While there’s nothing quite like being the seller and experiencing the excitement of registering that first successful auction sale for the first time, I mostly prefer to be the auction bidder and buyer. I love stumbling onto great deals that others have overlooked. These days, my best eBay finds and bargains come from the spelling error misfortunes of others.

A Few Examples Of Critical eBay Spelling Errors and Auction Typos That Will Cause The Seller To Lose A Lot Of Money But May Allow The Buyer To Profit

The unfortunate part of this is that there are thousands of eBay sellers that are going to lose a lot of money due to lost profits caused by lower final bids as a result of less bidding competition brought about by fewer people being able to locate the auction through misspelled keywords. With less bidding competition is the creation of an inefficient marketplace where bidders can purposely keep bid prices low, resulting in anemic final bid prices. However, the reality is that one man’s loss is another man’s gain. It’s not our fault that others fail to properly title or write their ads to maximize their own business revenue. As buyers, we shouldn’t feel guilty when we can take advantage of a great bargain or deal find. After all, we don’t feel guilty when we haggle at a bazaar, flea market, or any type of barter exchange, so why should any of us feel guilty about being able to snap up savings due to someone else’s incompetence?

One of the best, most common, and perhaps most expensive example of critical eBay auction spelling errors is the keyword – “diamonds”. Strangely enough, many people still incorrectly spell it as “dimond“, without the letter “A”. Despite the existence of free eBay provided spell checkers and a myriad of warnings and alerts, many sellers continue to list incorrectly spelled diamond related products for sale. For the sneaky bargain hunter, this is a lucrative gold mine, or a diamond mine for that matter, of great deals. Of course, there’s always the problem of discerning fake diamond products from the real gems. eBay and other auction sites are filled with lots of internet scams and online frauds.

As for myself, I’m currently in the market for a new GPS system for my car. My old handheld global positioning map system is currently being loaned to a friend of mine so I’ve decided to search eBay for any special GPS deals. As you may or may not know, GPS systems are rather expensive and can range anywhere from $200-$500 depending on brand and model. One popular GPS brand is Garmin. A quick search for the incorrectly spelled “Gamin“, “Garmen”, or “Garnin” yields a few nice results, in the eyes of mighty bargain hunters like myself. I’ll be sure to keep my eyes peeled for any good GPS misspelling deals in the near future.

Another common spelling mistake is for the word “monitor” as in LCD or computer monitor. A couple of common spelling errors can be created with the simple juxtaposition of a few letters to come up with “montoir“, “montor”, and “moniter”. I suppose it’s a common mistake, but it can be a costly one for the seller, especially if he or she is forced to uphold the sale. Computer monitors aren’t cheap! For fun, you can also try entering things like “Playstatoin” or “Playstaton” for the Sony Playstation – you’re bound to get a few intriguing bargains.

Instead of manually coming up with common typos and eBay spelling errors, you can also try using online software programs like Fat Fingers to help you come up with misspelling ideas for your target keyword. There are a whole slew of other similar eBay-minded programs online that can help you take advantage of common spelling mistakes. If you’re lucky, you might score a great deal too! The scecret has been out for some time but as long as there are absent minded poor spellers out there, there will be great deals for us buyours, I mean buyers.

Well it’s the long Memorial Day weekend again. Not only is this annual occasion significant to me because it always occurs around the same time as my birthday, it’s also one of the important federal holidays set aside by our United States government to honor those men and women of past and present who laid down their lives during the course of their great service to our country. As the grand puba of all knowledge, the great Wikipedia notes that Memorial Day was originally enacted to honor the northern Union soldiers after the American Civil War but has been enlarged to cover all American military casualties of any war or military action.

This post today is not meant to be a political statement. In fact, I hold rather neutral opinions about the U.S. government’s positions and the U.S. military’s actions in the ongoing war in the Middle East. I’m neither supportive, nor am I really against it. I’m not a military strategist, nor am I a foreign policy buff. While I watch and follow CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News, and have developed my own viewpoints like any other guy, I don’t claim to know the answers. So I leave the big foreign policy and homeland defense decisions to the elected bigwigs in Washington D.C. While my foreign policy views are both non committal and neutral, when it comes to supporting our patriotic troops, I’m in it 100%. I think they deserve our full support and admiration, and that includes past veterans, present troops coming back home, and future military personnel who have yet to enter the line of duty.

Our Military Soldiers Are Real People With Real Stories – And Not Just Faceless Statistics

Shortly after law school and my judicial clerkship with a trial court judge, I obtained a job to work as an appellate attorney at the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs in Washington D.C. While I was there I was exposed to the countless stories and lives of the many men and women who fought and sacrificed for our country during her times of need. Because I handled appeals stemming from military service connection and disability rating claims for veterans, I spent my working days reading and becoming intimately aware of war time realities and shared tragedies of our past veterans. While not all injuries or medical ailments sustained by military disability claimants were during the course of an armed conflict overseas, many were. For those who think the current soldiers fighting in the Iraqi and Afghanistan conflict today are sustaining significant casualties or massive injuries, the numbers pale in comparison to the devastating number of lives and limbs lost during past major wars – most notably during the Vietnam War.

The Vietnam War era was a terrible time in our history. Many of the soldiers came back with not only physical bodily damage from lost limbs, impaired sensory organs, or Agent Orange herbicide related diseases, a large number developed post traumatic stress syndrome after having witnessed all sorts of psychologically disturbing wartime brutality overseas. Much of today’s neighborhood to neighborhood close quarters combat experiences in the troubled areas of the Middle East are censored and filtered out by our sanitized television, print, and governmental media so that much of the information never reaches the American public. But as someone who has worked closely with such personal stories and accounts of battles and military engagements during my time of processing veteran disability claims, I’ve learned to greatly appreciate the sacrifices our fighting forces have made for our great nation.

While due to the backlogged and procedural nature of veteran disability cases, and due to the way past injuries and diseases tend to deteriorate over time, many of the appeals cases I handled arose from veterans who served honorably in wars as far back as the Vietnam War and World War II. At the time I was working at the Department of Veteran Affairs in Washington D.C., the war against terrorist forces in Afghanistan and later the invasion and occupation/liberation of Iraq (depending on how you look at it) had not resulted in a significant influx of wartime injuries or casualties yet. But since I’ve left the agency, I know the federal department is now facing a huge rush of returning soldiers from this new war our country is fighting. I can only hope we all continue to throw our admiration and support for our American military men and women as they dutifully do their part in helping to keep this country safe and protect our interests worldwide.

Supporting Our Troops and Veterans Is Not A Political Statement, But A Show Of Respect For The Honorable Sacrifices Made By Those Who Came and Served Before Us

I think many people and anti-war supporters seem to adopt the suggestive notion that somehow acknowledging verbal or written support for our fighting troops and veterans equates to an agreement or condonement of the current George W. Bush foreign policy or political decisions made regarding the nation’s fight against terrorism in the Middle East. Far from it. I support our troops and want to honor their actions because they are putting their lives in harms way for citizens and even non citizens living in the United States like you and I. While some of the soldiers had a choice, others had their choices made for them. I doubt most of the Army, Navy, Air Force, and soldiers from the Marines really wanted to fight abroad, but they made a noble commitment to serve their country should they be called upon to do so. They are simply doing their job and trying to do it the best they can, amidst the political maneuverings in Congress and the White House, the election season wrangling between the Democrats and Republicans, and amidst the dangerous sectarian violence that still plagues the Middle East.

So as we all sit within the comforts, shelter, and protection of our own nation’s borders, let’s not forget the fighting men and women who are still out there doing their jobs, putting their futures and lives on stake for you and I. While we all worry about less life threatening and comparatively petty matters closer to home such as rising gas prices, savings accounts, Roth IRA’s, credit scores, and credit card bills, there are young and old committed military families out there who just want their fathers, sons, and even moms and daughters to come back home in one piece. You don’t have to support the war to support our troops. You don’t even have to wave an American flag high or wear an American flag pin on your suit collar to support our troops. All you have to do is honor the sacrifices made by our past and present veterans in your hearts, and give them all the courtesy, admiration, and respect deserved by those who have served their country dutifully in a time of need. So while we all take this three day Memorial Day weekend to go on a road trip to visit the beach, or see our friends and family, remember, someone out there needs your thoughts and prayers.