Freedom isn't free

Happy Independence Day!

Our nation has paid a high price for our freedom.  We continue to pay that price over and over again, even today.  It wouldn't be an overstatement to say that our industry, aviation, has been uniquely called to satisfy the debt of freedom, after 9/11. While there is political division in this country, significant differences of opinion, there is no equivocation that the price for freedom must be paid.  We honor those who obliged us to that debt over 200 years ago as much as we honor those who continue to service it.

In the matter of our unity at my airline employer, what price are you willing to pay?  We must each contribute something in order to make it real and lasting, not just wordplay.  Nobody, no pre-merger "side" gets a pass!  

Will you sacrifice a workrule, your relative bidding seniority, a (temporary) base reassignment,  your hourly rate of pay, retirement benefit, or just a self-serving need to be "right"?  Talk is cheap and, as we have seen for 4 years now, it is oh-so-divisive and ultimately, fruitless.

We live in a strange, mythical time where one can "have" things without paying for them.  But without payment, what do those things really mean?  Freedom isn't free.  Nothing of any real value is.

What price are you prepared to pay?  The only certainty is pay we must.

"We must all hang together or assuredly we shall hang separately" - Benjamin Franklin

Enjoy the fireworks and celebration.  Then, try to remember what it all means!

May God bless the United States of America and all those who have paid so much for our way of life!