Yesterday I was riding my bike along the Chicago lakefront. I saw an older gentleman holding hands and walking with his wife by Navy Pier. He had a hat on, and it showed he was once an Airborne ranger that lived that life of sex and danger. I stopped and asked him if he was in World War 2. He looked to be about the vintage.
He had been. He had fought in the Pacific at the end of the war.
We had a brief conversation and I mentioned the WW2 Museum in New Orleans. He hadn’t heard of it. He wants to go visit and pulled his daughter over so they’d remember how to find it on the internet. When I see families come to the museum, something special happens. Great grandparents connect with their children, grandkids, and great grandkids. The visit creates touch points for family to remember grandpa forever.
Memorial Day is about that. It’s about families remembering their loved ones. It’s about buddies remembering the ones that didn’t come back. It’s about the country paying its respects to their service. We often use the words “ultimate sacrifice”; and sometimes we forget what that truly means.
Currently, there is a coverup with the Veterans Administration hospitals. It’s terrible. We owe them. We ought to just give each veteran a voucher to buy their own insurance, and see their own doctors. Would be better for them, and better for us. Cheaper too.
At any rate, Memorial Day is about them. Raise the flag this weekend. Here is a video to inspire you. Hope you share it with your friends.
In Flanders Fields
By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army
In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
