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American soldiers serving in Vietnam often had their chrome Zippo lighters engraved with terse sayings or comforting quotes.

My mother’s brother, Herbert Williamson—a captain in the US Army and a damned fine American—died two years after coming home from Vietnam. His lighter had these words—rumored to have been written by an unknown Marine during the siege of Khe Sanh—engraved on it:

For those who have fought for it, freedom has a taste the protected will never know.

Indeed.

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