about the universe forum commander Shop Now Commanders Circle
Product List FAQs home Links Contact Us

Saturday, May 28, 2011

On Memorial Day

This is Steven Petrick posting.

Today is part of the Memorial Day weekend.

It is a period of time taken from the calendar that we might honor those who have served our country in times of great peril, far too often at the expense of their lives or their health, whether physical or mental.

There is no true way we can measure what those who have served our country in the armed forces have given up that we may have this extra day to ourselves. Families sundered; children not just growing up without a parent, but never even conceived. This ignores things these people might have invented or discovered, works of art that were never created, or poems that were never written.

Much has been lost because of the sacrifices those who have served made.

We owe them.

We owe them to make the nation they fought for worth their sacrifices.

We owe them time to remember them, and to thank them that they made those sacrifices.

Not one freedom, not even the freedom to have this day off, would exist without their sacrifices.

The word "hero" is a much devalued term in our society today. Actors are heroes for championing a cause. Sports stars are no longer stars, but "heroes" in their own right.

There is no question that the fireman who rushes into the burning building is still a hero, as is the police officer who places himself between the citizen and the villain.

We should never forget, however, the true heroes. Men who fought on in the face of certain defeat and near starvation in the Philippines and endured the Bataan death march. Frightened men who fell out a dark sky in Sicily in 1943 to help secure a struggling beachhead. Honorable men who answered their nation's call to serve in a thankless war in Vietnam only to come home and see those who refused to go given honors.

The real heroes are those who have done what was necessary to protect their fellow citizens, even if their fellow citizens are utterly unaware of why the job had to be done. Whether it was Iraq, Somalia, Tarawa, Cuba, Galveston, Tripoli, or Vera Cruz, yesterday, or today, and hopefully if necessary in some distant future.

Let us all resolve to be worthy of them and what they have given us by service, and yes, sometimes their sacrifice.