Freedom Has a Local Address

At 11 a.m. on Nov. 11, 1918, the guns went silent. Yesterday, one hundred and eight years later, we still stop to remember. Kids learned the word “veteran” in a classroom across town. Somebody’s grandfather pulled on a ball cap he only wears once a year, and for a few hours this little city of ours slowed down long enough to say thank you. In a place as small as Falls Church, you don’t just observe that pause. You feel it, because the veteran being honored is your neighbor, your coach, the guy who waves from his driveway every morning. Every veteran in this city raised a right hand and swore to support and defend the Constitution. Not a party. Not a president. Not a politician. The Constitution. And the very first promise in the Bill of Rights, before anything else, protects free speech and a free press. Think about that for a moment. The men and women we honored yesterday took an oath that covers the right of a small-town newspaper to tell its own City Council it got something wrong.

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