In honor of those who served…
Did you stop today to tell your kids why everyone had the day off?
Most kids think of Memorial Day as “the start of summer” or just a free break from school. We try each year to impress upon the boys of how the “holiday” is actually to remember those who have fallen in our place.
Dad does his part each year by participating in Rolling Thunder, a huge gathering in Washington D.C. by motorcyclists all across the country. I want to go next year - actually, I want to take the older boys, too.
Dad snapped this pic and sent it to us. 58,749 soldiers lost -truly lost, they never came home so we still don’t know if they died or are/were POWs- in the Vietnam War. Dad was drafted for Nam but ended up with stateside tours. He goes each year, as he puts it, “to honor and remember those who went in my place and never came home. There but for the grace of God go I.”
Talking with him today, he reckons that each of those guys would have had an average of two children, who’d be around my age now. Each of those children would’ve had an average of two children, who’d be the age of my kids or so. Some would even have great-grandchildren by now, if their kids got started having kids earlier than I did. So just stop and think for a moment about how much of the possible population was wiped out in that war. It’s devastating. Then for more mind-boggling tragedy, think about all of the WWI and WWII soldiers lost in action… and the soldiers we’re losing daily in Iraq. (I hate how the news calls them “troops”. To me, a “troop” is a group of soldiers, not one individual soldier.)
These men and women pay the ultimate price for us to be able to sit here comfortably blogging about how normal our lives are. Setting our flags at half-mast for half of a day once a year just isn’t enough to honor them for their sacrifices.
Just a little reminder about how freedom isn’t free.
To all of the veterans and the soldiers out there, thank you for my freedom, and the freedom of my sons.
What do you think? I wanna know! Please leave a comment :)
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