WHERE DEMOCRACY BEGINS

Tomorrow, our country will elect the 44th President of the United States and when we do, history will be unalterably changed. Over the last few months, much has been made out of what is expected to be a historically large turnout for a Presidential election, yet no matter what happens, 60 to 70 million people will make the decision not to vote.

Gore Vidal once commented, "Half of Americans have never read a paper. Half have never voted in an election. We can only hope that they are the same half."

I can remember how proud I was the first time I got to vote in the Presidential election. In was 1984 and I had turned 18 just a month before the election. At the time I didn't know much of anything about politics but I read the paper, I watched the debates, and studied what each of the candidates was putting forth as policy. When all was said and done, I realized I was most closely aligned with President Reagan and that's who I voted for.

Three months before, I had gone down to the Post Office to register for the draft - where we ever to need one. I remember coming home and telling my mother I had registered and she cried. At that moment, she felt her baby had grown up. I didn't feel it then. I felt it 97 days later when I walked into the voting booth and cast my vote as an American adult for something that mattered. Suddenly, my voice was just as important as everyone else's. I've never felt more like an American than I did that day.

I have a friend who's a fellow dad in my Boy Scout Troop. He is Middle Eastern and has lived all over the world in countries where we now find ourselves fighting, in others most of us would be challenged to find on a map. He has lived through all kinds of governments, all kinds of ideologies, all kinds of freedoms. Two months ago, he became a United States citizen and tomorrow, for the first time, he will vote as an American citizen.

Win or lose, he has a voice. We each have a voice. And no matter what it takes, tomorrow, it is our responsibility to use it.