Our annual bazaar is just one month away, Sunday December 7, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. 

We have wonderful new vendors and our favorites, Hudson Girl, Uniquely Stoned, The Chosen, Carlos Pereira,  Tesserot Pottery, Ellen's Treasures, and Dixie's Jewels, traveling all the way from Maryland, just to name a few.   

April and Rhoni are ready to  make their lists and check them twice!!!

We need a raffle chairperson and a few people to work that day.

Save all your gelt and plan to do your holiday shopping with us, proceeds benefit TBO.

Flyers are available for you to post in condo or apartment bulletin boards, to give out to groups, or to ask the businesses you patronize to post in their windows.   

provides safe passage walkways from parking lot to building on a mulch bed instead of rough terrain, tree roots and encroaching vegetation.

Watch for additional improvements as we add sitting area, etc.~ House & Grounds

First, I would like to say how honored I am to have been asked to speak to you this evening about my military service. When Ellen approached me about making some remarks in honor of Veteran's Day, I jumped at the chance. Even though I cannot be there in person because of a prior engagement, I am so happy to be able to contribute to tonight's service with a "sermon" of sorts.

For those of you who don't know me, my name is Sara Hanson. My parents are Ellen and John Hanson, and my family has been members of Beth Or for nearly twenty years. These days, I am more commonly known as "Captain Hanson", as I am currently serving on active duty with the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General's (or "JAG") Corps. Right now I am stationed at Fort Hood in Texas, where I work as a military prosecutor for the 13^th Expeditionary Sustainment Command. I have previously worked as a legal assistance attorney, providing legal aid to servicemembers and their families, and last year I deployed to Afghanistan for ten months as an operational legal advisor.  

My experience in the military has been transformative in so many ways. In putting together this presentation for you, I have tried to touch on a few key areas that I hope you will find interesting.

Firstly, I would like to briefly touch on military families and the sacrifices they make. Although my deployment was a challenging experience, it was overall a very good experience and a time in my career that, in some ways, I miss. That being said, I would not want to deploy again - not because I don't want to go overseas, but because of the toll that it took on my family. In truth, I volunteered for my deployment without giving much thought to the impact it would have on my family. I know now that for nearly a year, they hung on every phone call and email I sent them; that every mention of Afghanistan on the television terrified them; and that as scared as I felt sometimes, they were just as frightened. Aside from the obvious daily challenges that many military families face, such as an absent parent, the fear and uncertainty of having a loved one deployed is excruciating. I think it is important for us all to put ourselves in military family members' shoes and imagine how we would feel if someone we dearly loved was so far away and potentially in harms' way; that is its own kind of battle to fight every day, and it too often goes unnoticed and unappreciated.

Talk of family brings me to my second topic - my Army "family". One of the most valuable things I have taken away from my time in the military, and especially from my deployment, is an incredible sense of comradery. I have never worked in a place where I felt so bolstered by the support of my colleagues and friends. Military service teaches you to value your teammates and instills a sense of loyalty and duty to your unit. You are encouraged to look out for your battle buddies all the time - to ensure that they are safe and squared away. A supportive network is built around each member of the team so that no one should ever feel alone or abandoned. An Army office is no ordinary office.

This sense of team unity is never more important than when you are deployed. When you are downrange, your team becomes your family, and that is certainly true of the 12-person legal team that I deployed with. We spent 10 months crammed into a 20x20 foot tin box: we laughed and cried and fought and complained, and came out the other side loving each other like brothers and sisters. These people will be my friends for the rest of my life. I could try to describe that experience for you, but they were there and went through it with me. They know what the whole thing looked like, smelled like, and tasted like. When I had to work the night shift, they stayed up late to keep me company. When one of us celebrated a birthday or suffered a personal loss, we celebrated and grieved as a unit. When our camp was attacked, we made sure each other were safe. I will never share those experiences with anyone else.

As a matter of fact, I am with my deployment team tonight; one of the team is getting married in Broward and we are all in town for his wedding. The rehearsal dinner, going on right now, is the first time we will all be together since we've been back in the states. The people on my team were from all different religious, racial, ethnic, and political backgrounds, but we came together to accomplish a mission and came out the other side a family. I can't think of a better testament to teamwork and service than that.

To wrap up my presentation, I would like to speak a bit about the nature of public service, and military service in particular. In the spirit of total honesty, I feel compelled to tell you all that I never gave any thought to joining the military until right before I applied. I am the child of progressive, intellectual parents and I myself was (and still am) a card-carrying ACLU member, yoga-loving, tree-hugging, bleeding-heart liberal. It simply wasn't part of my life's plan, until the economy fell off a cliff in 2008 and my plans had to change. The frank truth is that, had you told me five years ago that today I would be on active duty in the military, and that I would have just returned from a deployment to Afghanistan, I would have thought you were crazy.  

However, although the military hasn't always been my plan, I have always hoped to have a career in some type of public service. I was raised in a quietly patriotic home; we didn't wear "Proud to be an American" t-shirts, but we knew how to properly fold a flag. Justice, freedom, and equality - all fundamental American values - were taught, discussed, and debated in our home. Whether they meant to or not, my parents taught me to deeply and profoundly love my country; to be willing to die to defend her, if necessary. But I was not taught to love my country blindly. I was raised, like all good Jewish kids, to ask questions.   I was taught that dissent is patriotic; to stand up and make my voice count; that is it the responsibility of all Americans to criticize our own policies when we are wrong, and to take an active part in steering our country in the right direction. In our home, you could love America and disagree with her at the same time.  

I believe that both my sense of national pride as well as my impulse to constructively criticize the country that I love led me into being a military lawyer. I will frankly tell you that I don't always agree with the decisions that the military makes. But I can also tell you that when my unit asked for volunteers to go to Afghanistan, my hand shot into the air before I could even form a coherent thought. I jumped at the chance to contribute to the mission and to my team in the most direct way I could imagine - a combat deployment.

In every operational law briefing I give to my Soldiers, I share with them a John McCain quote about the Law of War: "It's not about them, it's about us." We choose to fight our wars by a set of rules and according to our principles, even if our enemies won't follow the same rules, and even if they turn our rules against us. This expression of our national values, even in the face of mortal risk, is the bravest and purest expression of patriotism that I have ever had the privilege to be a part of. It is what makes us the "good guys" and them the "bad guys".

One of the first things that you are required to learn when you enter the Army is the "Soldier's Creed." It is basically a statement of principles and doctrines that American Soldiers are supposed to live by. If you are unfamiliar with it, here it is:  

I am an American Soldier.

I am a warrior and a member of a team.

I serve the people of the United States, and live the Army Values.

I will always place the mission first.

I will never accept defeat.

I will never quit.

I will never leave a fallen comrade.

I am disciplined, physically and mentally tough, trained and proficient in my warrior tasks and drills.

I always maintain my arms, my equipment and myself.

I am an expert and I am a professional.

I stand ready to deploy, engage, and destroy, the enemies of the United States of America in close combat.

I am a guardian of freedom and the American way of life.

I am an American Soldier.

The creed gives me chills every time I read or say it. It encapsulates so perfectly the sense of duty and honor I feel at being allowed the privilege to wear my uniform and represent the United States of America each and every day. I don't know if I will still be in the military two years, ten years, or twenty years from now. But I do know that I will always be a Soldier, and I will always be proud to have served my country.

Thank you.