Memorial Day, Time to say thanks

[pineranch]

For my Veteran friends, thank you for your service.

This six minute video production is about 4-years old but still applies this coming Memorial Day – remember!

I am sending this early so you have time to send it to someone you know who wrote that check.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKqT...e_gdata_player

Mike

[Ozz]

Thanks Mike. Thank you for your service.

[K0LCB]

Thank you Mike, and my heartfelt appreciation to all who served, and my most sincere sympathy to those who never had the opportunity!

[HOOK]

Thanks to all who served, but more especially to the many who gave all.

[bigskyjimmy]

I think people forget sometimes what this Holiday is for,they are just happy for a day off work, NEVER FORGET and appreciate the sacrifice and service of the most stellar and best armed forces in the world and they are the reason I can have this Awesome lifestyle

[Art-n-Marge]

Blessed are the fallen... They shall never be forgotten...

[richfaa]

My memories of Memorial day are as a kid. We would go to the North side cemetery in Pittsburgh with my Uncles all veterans and of course all gone now. We pulled wagons with buckets filled with little flags that they and their fellow vets placed on the graves of the fallen. I well remember the row upon row of flags. There was always tears in the eyes of these brave men as they placed flags on the graves of those they knew, there were many. They told us never to forget. We fly the flag every day in their honor. This was a great generation of men and women who gave their all so we can live in freedom. let us never forget.

[Art-n-Marge]

Oops, I should have include the departed, too. I was reminded of this on Richfaa and attending cemetaries with his now departed family members, any veteran no longer able to enjoy the freedoms they fought for others to have should be remembered. Every generation will have those that serve, fall or pass away in defense of freedom for everyone to appreciate, not take for granted.

[Rondo]

Being Commander of my hometown American Legion Post opened my eyes to the reason for Memorial Day even more. We go to all of the cemeteries in my hometown area and place flags and white crosses at each and everyone of the Veterans graves all the way from GAR Vets to the present. It's a sobering sight to see all the crosses and the flags flying in those cemeteries and knowing that some of these men and women gave their lives so we could enjoy the pleasures and benefits we now have. We hold a Memorial Service on Memorial Day and have a guest speaker come in yearly also. This year we are having a Command Sargeant Major from the US Army stationed at Offutt AFB and detailed as an advisor to the Commander of STRATCOM. We also fly the burial flags of the Vets that their families given to our Legion Post. We have an "Avenue of Flags" that runs up the main street of town on both sides. Now that is an sight to see!

I'd like to thank all of the Veterans that have served our country and signed that contract saying they would give their lives if need be to preserve the freedom we all enjoy. Thanks Mike for posting that sight, what an inspiration!

To all my MOC friends-- Have a great Memorial Day Weekend and while you're enjoying the BBQ or sitting around the fire think of what the Veterans have given you and when you meet a Vet say "Thanks for Serving!" I think you'll see a tear in their eye for that one little statement.

[CORattler]

I have had many Americans thank me for my service. It wasn't always that way.
I was one of the lucky ones that made it home in one piece with all my parts. I often think of those who paid the ultimate price. I currently work with a fine group of soldiers daily and you can be proud of them as well as past warriors. They are very dedicated and good at what they do.

[kab449]

We also have services in the town cemetery with a parade and guest speaker. But the moment that drives home the real reason for day is when you hear the far away trumpet on the west hill play taps, and then the closer one on the east hill completes the tribute. It tears me up every time. Thanks for your service and may God bless you may he also take care of the patriots who are in his care.

[DQDick]

Thanks to all who made the sacrifice and particularly those who sacrificed it all!

[Steve and Susie]

Thanks to all my Fellow Veterans. Rondo I also am a Past Commander and know the pride you feel placing Flags and Crosses on the fallen's Graves. I am very tender hearted and never once made it thru the little speech when handing a widow the Flag at a Cemetary, with out a quivering chin and voice. This Memorial Day we are hosting the Annual Pot Luck Jam at Alice Springs RV Park and Resort in Ionia, MI. We will open the jam with our theme song, then Pledge of Allegiance, Moment of Silence for Fallen Soldiers, and those on duty now, and the Stricken in Oklahoma, then Invocation. I usually try to stay middle of the road on things, but for some reason this year with all the pain and hurt in Oklahoma I feel compelled to add more to our jam. At 6 PM we will break for pot luck dinner with the singing of God Bless America and Blessing of the dinner. At the end of the jam, we will close the festivities with a Hymn and Taps. Our Band has a great following and I can see absolutely no one will be offended by what we are doing, and actually if they are, they are welcome to leave, and not return. I think its time we stand up for what we believe. Everyone have a great and safe Memorial Day, and God Bless America. Happy Trails, Steve and Susie

[Rainer]

Please never confuse Memorial Day with Veteran's Day.

Memorial Day is for the remembrance of those brave servicemen and women who died while serving in the United States Armed Forces. They shall never be forgotten

Veteran's Day is to honor all the living veterans who have served in armed service and gave up a portion of their lives to make this country what it is today.

[Bigboomer]

I believe President Ronald Reagan's remarks at Arlington on Memorial Day, 1986 sums it up:

"Today is the day we put aside to remember fallen heroes and to pray that no heroes will ever have to die for us again. It’s a day of thanks for the valor of others, a day to remember the splendor of America and those of her children who rest in this cemetery and others. It’s a day to be with the family and remember.

I was thinking this morning that across the country children and their parents will be going to the town parade and the young ones will sit on the sidewalks and wave their flags as the band goes by. Later, maybe, they’ll have a cookout or a day at the beach. And that’s good, because today is a day to be with the family and to remember.

Arlington, this place of so many memories, is a fitting place for some remembering. So many wonderful men and women rest here, men and women who led colorful, vivid, and passionate lives. There are the greats of the military: Bull Halsey and the Admirals Leahy, father and son; Black Jack Pershing; and the GI’s general, Omar Bradley. Great men all, military men. But there are others here known for other things.

Here in Arlington rests a sharecropper’s son who became a hero to a lonely people. Joe Louis came from nowhere, but he knew how to fight. And he galvanized a nation in the days after Pearl Harbor when he put on the uniform of his country and said, “I know we’ll win because we’re on God’s side.” Audie Murphy is here, Audie Murphy of the wild, wild courage. For what else would you call it when a man bounds to the top of a disabled tank, stops an enemy advance, saves lives, and rallies his men, and all of it single-handedly. When he radioed for artillery support and was asked how close the enemy was to his position, he said, “Wait a minute and I’ll let you speak to them.”

Michael Smith is here, and Dick Scobee, both of the space shuttle Challenger. Their courage wasn’t wild, but thoughtful, the mature and measured courage of career professionals who took prudent risks for great reward—in their case, to advance the sum total of knowledge in the world. They’re only the latest to rest here; they join other great explorers with names like Grissom and Chaffee.1

Oliver Wendell Holmes is here, the great jurist and fighter for the right. A poet searching for an image of true majesty could not rest until he seized on “Holmes dissenting in a sordid age.” Young Holmes served in the Civil War. He might have been thinking of the crosses and stars of Arlington when he wrote: “At the grave of a hero we end, not with sorrow at the inevitable loss, but with the contagion of his courage; and with a kind of desperate joy we go back to the fight.”

All of these men were different, but they shared this in common: They loved America very much. There was nothing they wouldn’t do for her. And they loved with the sureness of the young. It’s hard not to think of the young in a place like this, for it’s the young who do the fighting and dying when a peace fails and a war begins. Not far from here is the statue of the three servicemen—the three fighting boys of Vietnam. It, too, has majesty and more. Perhaps you’ve seen it—three rough boys walking together, looking ahead with a steady gaze. There’s something wounded about them, a kind of resigned toughness. But there’s an unexpected tenderness, too. At first you don’t really notice, but then you see it. The three are touching each other, as if they’re supporting each other, helping each other on.

I know that many veterans of Vietnam will gather today, some of them perhaps by the wall. And they’re still helping each other on. They were quite a group, the boys of Vietnam—boys who fought a terrible and vicious war without enough support from home, boys who were dodging bullets while we debated the efficacy of the battle. It was often our poor who fought in that war; it was the unpampered boys of the working class who picked up the rifles and went on the march. They learned not to rely on us; they learned to rely on each other. And they were special in another way: They chose to be faithful. They chose to reject the fashionable skepticism of their time. They chose to believe and answer the call of duty. They had the wild, wild courage of youth. They seized certainty from the heart of an ambivalent age; they stood for something.

And we owe them something, those boys. We owe them first a promise: That just as they did not forget their missing comrades, neither, ever, will we. And there are other promises. We must always remember that peace is a fragile thing that needs constant vigilance. We owe them a promise to look at the world with a steady gaze and, perhaps, a resigned toughness, knowing that we have adversaries in the world and challenges and the only way to meet them and maintain the peace is by staying strong.

That, of course, is the lesson of this century, a lesson learned in the Sudetenland, in Poland, in Hungary, in Czechoslovakia, in Cambodia. If we really care about peace, we must stay strong. If we really care about peace, we must, through our strength, demonstrate our unwillingness to accept an ending of the peace. We must be strong enough to create peace where it does not exist and strong enough to protect it where it does. That’s the lesson of this century and, I think, of this day. And that’s all I wanted to say. The rest of my contribution is to leave this great place to its peace, a peace it has earned.

Thank all of you, and God bless you, and have a day full of memories."


At 3 pm on Memorial Day I will stop and take 1 solemn minute of silence to remember those men and women who gave their all so I can sleep in comfort every single night.

GOD Bless America!

Les

[Steve and Susie]

Thank you so very much for that Les, very informative and great reading. God Bless America. Happy Trails, Steve and Susie

[Rainer]

I think this says it all.

[K0LCB]

Everyone should pause at 1500 local time and remember those gave all so we can go on!