Several years ago I shared a few personal Veterans Day perspectives that new readers of this blog may find interesting. I, like each of you, was -- and continue to be -- profoundly grateful for the dedicated service, commitment, loyalty, sacrifice, and love of country displayed daily by our active, guard, and reserve servicemen and women, and, of course, our veterans.

As we approach Veterans Day tomorrow, I’d ask you to take a moment to pause and consider for a moment “why we do what we do.”  For DoD life cycle logisticians, whether military, civilian or an industry colleague, of course, there are likely to be as many answers to that question as there are professionals working this in this arena.

Permit me, if you would, to posit perhaps most important reason of all. We do it because our nation needs us to do it. Our duty is to help ensure the citizens of this nation have a well-trained, well-motivated, well-qualified, and well-equipped armed forces capable of ‘protecting and defending against all enemies, foreign and domestic.’ As life cycle logisticians, this entails crafting and implementing product support arrangements that are affordable, as well as ensuring required capabilities, readiness, and availability. Our job is to provide affordable, supportable, reliable and maintainable systems for our soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, and coast guardsmen. For those of us who may not currently wear the uniform, these are our friends and colleagues, as well as our sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, and in some cases, even our parents or grandchildren. They put their lives on the line on a daily basis for this nation of ours.  They deserve the very best, and each of us should recommit ourselves to doing everything in our power to provide it for them.

We life cycle logisticians, like our veterans, do what we do in order to serve our armed forces and our country. Encourage you to take a moment to not only reflect on their sacrifice and to thank a veteran for their service and their defense of our freedoms… while at the same time, please also accepting a well-deserved thanks for doing what you do to support those men and women serving this great nation of ours.