By Sabrina Berkiewicz
I recently visited Washington D.C. for the first time. I was lucky enough to watch the House of Representatives and the Senate in their respective galleries. I’ve watched this many times on CSPAN, but watching in person was different. I concluded that these people representing Americans, the board of directors of our country, are actually just people like you and me. It made me realize the great burden of responsibility we carry as citizens to vote at every opportunity and to make wise choices. The people we elect to run our country, the most powerful and influential country on this earth are the people that you and I are electing- wow. Take it seriously folks.
Next, I went to Arlington National Cemetery where there are headstones from every war that has been waged on American soil since the Revolutionary War. It struck me that we all desire peace in this world and on our own shores, but the price of that peace is war and death through the sacrifice of Americans. There is no escaping this truth, as you are surrounded by an endless sea of small white headstones; you feel the weight of them bearing down on you. The price of our liberty, freedom, our safety, and the price of being an American, comes down to the willingness to protect, defend, and maintain this peace and safety, and sometimes that means going to war. We are kidding ourselves if we believe otherwise.
As I stood in Arlington, I looked in the distance and saw a funny building. I realized I was staring at the Pentagon. It was an odd feeling to know that I, a girl from the cornfields of rural Illinois, was standing in Arlington face to face with the Pentagon. I was filled with grief when I realized that it was here that a terrorist flew a plane into this building on September 11th, 2001. A wave of sadness great washed over me for the people who might have been standing right here that fateful day and watched that plane hit the Pentagon. Perhaps it was irony that this occurred so close to the one place in our country that displays our unwillingness to tolerate evil – a silent promise of what was to come for the terrorists. I felt like that moment changed me as I stood in Arlington. If you ever want to truly understand and feel the history of our nation, visit Arlington, and the headstones will share the story with you in a way that a history book can never do.
Sabrina Burkiewicz currently works in Marketing at the Illinois Farm Bureau and is a graduate student at Illinois State University. Sabrina spent nearly a decade at Home Sweet Home Ministries where she worked to create awareness about the invisible people in our community. Sabrina is an avid reader, enjoys baking, gardening, skiing and snorkeling with her husband Chris. Sabrina and Chris live in Bloomington where they attend the Evangelical Free Church.
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