North Ridgeville Review The Community That Cares
This year our country turns 250, and America 250-Ohio has given each month a theme. November’s is Ohio Serves.
When my nephew recently graduated from the Naval Academy, I sat in a stadium full of families as hundreds of young officers crossed the stage. Navy pilots flew overhead. I’ve always considered myself a patriotic person, but that day the feeling was almost overwhelming. Every one of those graduates was choosing to put their life on the line for people they will never meet.
I had felt something similar walking through Arlington National Cemetery as a chaperone on my kids’ eighth-grade trips to Washington. Row after row of white headstones, field after field. Watching the changing of the guard, you understand how much sacrifice it has taken to give us freedoms we take for granted every day.
Service runs deep in my family, from the Civil War to World War II to Vietnam to my nephew today. What strikes me most is not any single act of courage. It’s that someone in each generation decided to step up, and then someone in the next one did too. Service doesn’t always come with a moment. Sometimes it just keeps showing up.
You can see that kind of service right here in North Ridgeville. Rick Adler came home from Vietnam in 1970 and has spent his retirement helping fellow veterans claim the benefits they earned. I’m looking forward to talking with him at Coffee and Conversation on November 18. Before that, on November 11, the volunteers behind the North Ridgeville Veterans Memorial will once again gather the community at the memorial for Veterans Day. I hope you’ll join us for both.
As we gather around our tables later this month, I hope we take a minute to be grateful for the people who keep showing up, for our country and for each other.
Happy Thanksgiving, North Ridgeville.
Mayor Kevin Corcoran
