As I look ahead to 12 noon this Tuesday, I have a heart full of hope for our new president.  His vision has been my vision throughout all of last year and long before the start of his presidential campaign.  What is mentioned most by people I talk with regarding their hopes for Obama's are specifics like restoring the domestic economy, bringing home the troops from Iraq, initiating a new, comprehensive healthcare program, improving education, and a seemingly endless list of other wishes.
    While I find each of those and all of those enormously important, I hope for things more intangible and somewhat spiritual.  Foremost, I want this president to restore in the American people--especially our young families--the belief in possibilities for our American society.  We have been bombarded by an avalanche of national failures from hurricanes to wars of questionable national interest.  We need a president who can restore our belief in ourselves as a people reminding us of our strong history and capacity to lead the world into a future of change and challenge.
    Secondly, our new president must change the international perception of our nation as unilateral warmongers.  He needs to show the family of nations around the globe with his personal leadership that we are once again the true beacon of liberty, justice and democracy.  That we will no longer flex our military might simply because we believe some group poses a threat to us.  Where danger exists, we must be ready to take action but we should never again make assumptions that feed our suspicions just as an excuse to rain the terror of war down on another nation and its innocent civilians.
    On the other side of my hopes is a matter of special importance to me:   I don't want to see is our new president, under pressure to fix the economy and guard us "from all enemies foreign and domestic," forgetting the families of our armed forces.  We can't allow the wounded and maimed veterans of our questionable foreign engagements to have their recovery crippled by a lack of funding or presidential inaction.  Our president has to remember that the families of our deployed service people have paid a terrible price of poverty because they have been forced to raise their kids on a stipend so minuscule that it is a national shame.