As we gather around home and hearth to offer due gratitude to God, country and family for our more obvious blessings, large and small, let us also pause to remember and thank those for whom duty calls this Thanksgiving day:
* The troops, sailors and airmen who defend our freedoms and those of the world, at home and abroad, and all of the military and civilian personnel on duty today in support of their missions.
* First-responders of all kinds–police, fire, emergency medical–who will be there in short order should your house be burglarized, or your turkey fryer start an inferno, or a family member suffer a heart attack while watching the game.
* Border Patrol, deployed National Guard, Coast Guard, FBI, Secret Service and other national law-enforcement and security personnel on duty today.
* Hospital and nursing-home workers of all sorts, because sickness, suffering and need of aid don’t respect holidays.
* Operational meteorologists, the forecasters working rotating shifts today, and the technicians who keep their equipment going, because weather doesn’t respect holidays.
* Utility and communications workers who are on duty to make sure your gas, electricity, water, sewage and phone are running, and on call in case of outage.
* Air, rail and truck shippers delivering all manner of goods and food to the stores tonight and tomorrow.
* Retail workers in 24/7/365 businesses. If you need to get some salt or foil today, somebody will be at the 7-11 to sell it to you, and the gas pumps will be running.
* America’s farmers and ranchers–because crops, livestock and poultry don’t know it’s Thanksgiving (except perhaps the turkeys). Neither does the fence that fell over last night behind the back 40, or the loose gate in the stall.
* Air-traffic control personnel, keeping the skies safe for what travelers there are and for all that flying freight.
* Restaurant and hospitality workers. Not everybody is staying or eating at home!
* Prison guards, making sure the bad guys stay where they belong.
* Security guards, keeping bad guys not already imprisoned out of places they don’t belong.
* Server operators and troubleshooters, keeping them all humming so that you are able to go online today and read this.
* All repairmen on call today. Before this day is over, somebody’s shorted-out furnace, busted water pipe, or leaky fuel line will need attention that can’t wait until business hours.
* Hotline workers manning the phones for poison control, suicide, rape-crisis, ask-a-nurse, and other means of urgent assistance.
* Any of the folks working parking, concessions, security and broadcast/tech support for today’s games you’ll be watching.
I probably left off a lot of others on duty and on call today; but the important point is that a lot of people in America are working today–as well as on other holidays, nights and weekends. All deserve our thanks for their work today.