Take A Moment Today To Honor Those Who Died Serving This Country
We Americans are in the midst of an enormous upheaval, socially, economically and politically. We question virtually every aspect of the so-called “establishment” — and we do so critically and vigorously.
But the very foundation of our way of life for more than two centuries remains above the fray, for good reason.
Whatever benefits we as a people have accrued during our history as a nation are due to one factor, and one only: the men and women who have served us in uniform in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard. Our very freedom to criticize those in power would not exist had they not defended it.
Today, we pause to mourn and honor those who made the ultimate sacrifice for us, laying down their lives while serving in the armed forces. It is Memorial Day.
Our honored dead can be found everywhere, in national cemeteries set aside for them exclusively, in community burial parks, in small, sometimes overgrown family plots and sometimes, in mass graves dug near where they fell in battle. Today, they are at peace.
But they laid down their lives in hellish situations. Some froze to death at Valley Forge. Some were bayoneted by British troops on their way to burn the White House in 1814. Others succumbed to tropical disease in front of the defenses at Monterey, Mexico.
Still more perished in field hospitals after being wounded at Gettysburg by other Americans.
Malaria claimed some of them as they fought the Spanish in Cuba.
Others were victims of horrific new weapons such as machine guns and poison gas used in France during World War I.
Some died firing their guns at Kamikaze pilots who flew straight into U.S. ships in the Pacific. More fell from the skies in the greatest air war ever waged, over Europe. Many were killed just days before atomic bombs brought the slaughter of World War II to a close.
Thousands more gave their lives in a “forgotten war” in Korea that their comrades could never forget.
Thousands more made the ultimate sacrifice in Vietnam after reading of soldiers returning home to be spat upon and referred to as “baby killers.”
More recently, the muster rolls of the honored dead have been lengthened by American men and women battling dictators and terrorists in the Middle East — too often as our political leaders insisted U.S. troops were not involved in combat there.
Never, ever have Americans been let down by our men and women in uniform.
We have so much because they gave so much — their very lives in service to us.
So today, pause for a moment — if only to say a silent prayer of gratitude — to honor our fallen heroes. Abraham Lincoln put it well: They gave their lives that this nation might live.
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