On this Memorial Day, 2014, my 79th, I want to remember all those guys I left behind in ‘Nam, all those I never served with in Korea (because I was still in training when the hostilities stopped) and all those we lost unnecessarily in the Oil Company War, (Iraq), and for a good reason in Afghanistan.
Our nation appreciates and honors our warriors when they are warrioring, and tries to defund and forget them when they are through warrioring for us. (See the VA mess, which has existed in one form or another since the Revolutionary War of the late 1700’s and early 1800’s.)
But at least one day a year is set aside to remember the fallen. It is our duty to remember them today. It is good to raise a glass even over the barbie to them, and to toast them loudly and with gusto. For those who pray it is good to say one for them, because many who fell also prayed. For those who do not pray it is good to take the moments to quietly remember and appreciate their actions, their fears, their courage and their deaths.
Those who gave the “last full measure of devotion” for the people of our nation, its principles, its freedoms, its liberties, whenever and wherever, known and unknown, should and must be honored on this day.
