I wrote this letter a while ago when we made the decision to offer an ongoing discount for veterans. Looking back, it still feels relevant, so I wanted to reshare it for all you newbies in the Day Owl community.
I remember the day my friend John Krohn told us he was deploying to Iraq in 2003. I remember wandering downstairs in the Student Union building in a daze and watching Colin Powell tell us that there were weapons of mass destruction in these little trucks in the desert. This is what seemed like weeks after I stood in Irving’s Bagels on College Ave with my mouth open, watching the towers come down and wondering frantically if my cousin Tracy and her husband Luke, who lived down the street from Ground Zero, were ok (they were).
I stood and watched while a bunch of others put themselves in harm’s way. JD, my cousin Greg. We were all kids.
Sometime between then and now, it got weird to simultaneously honor the sacrifice of a person, disagree with the people that sent them into battle, and love the place they sent them from.
Patriotism isn’t using the flag as a weapon to support your own version of ideological purity. It’s being fiercely proud that your ideology can exist in tension with everyone else’s. In this way America is strong, not despite our differences, but because of them. Defending this right to disagree without being disagreeable is what makes any nation exceptional. I don’t know where that went, but I believe like any great thing we’ve done as a national community, all we have to do to get it back is to decide to.
Given the sacrifice I recognize the insignificance of the gesture, but Veterans get 30% off. Everybody else 20% for Memorial Day. Thanks, JD. Thanks, Greg. Thanks, Jerome. Thanks, Joe...and thank you to every man and woman that’s answered the call.
If you’re a veteran, active duty or military spouse, click below to shop (verify your id by clicking the green button at the bottom of your cart) and please pass this note along. You’re always welcome with us.
Happy Memorial Day,
Ian
