Memorial Day
Posted By Russ Emerson on May 28, 2012 at 11:00 am
Here we are, at the beginning — strictly unofficially, of course — of summer. Many will be spending their day off at the malls or beaches or cookouts. I don’t begrudge anyone a good time, but there should be some time set aside to remember what Memorial Day is really all about.
Begun as Decoration Day to honor the fallen of the Civil War, it has in the years since become a day to remember all who have fallen in the military service of this, the greatest country in the history of the world.
Even before there was a United States of America, men were willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for the principles on which our nation was ultimately founded: liberty, equality before the law, and the chance to make of one’s self more than what was bequeathed by one’s parentage.
Since the Revolution, more than three quarters of a million men — and some women as well — have laid down their lives at home and abroad. Some of those dead never made it home; cemeteries full of American dead lie scattered around the globe, marking those places where free men chose to stand against all foes. Many sailors were buried at sea. Some who served disappeared entirely, their fates a mystery.
A handful lie, under the ceaseless care of the Old Guard, in the Tomb of the Unknowns, where the epitaph reads: “Here Rests in Honored Glory an American Soldier Known But to God.”
Their sacrifices paid for the freedom we have today to enjoy those trips to the mall, the beach, to a cookout.
So take some time today to think about those who paid that price. And maybe say a prayer of thanks.