It’s the Memorial Day holiday here in the States…
Thank you for remembering - I lost a family member in the early days of Vietnam. He was a teen aged Marine, just out of high school.
Thank you for that
Thank you for posting what this holiday is truly about. Not BBQs… Not sales events… But remembrance of our war dead. Take a moment to think of them and honor their ultimate sacrifices.
Thanks to the veterans at FSM. It’s an honor to be here with you.
From Ronald Reagan’s first inaugural speech:
"33Beyond those monuments to heroism is the Potomac River, and on the far shore the sloping hills of Arlington National Cemetery with its row on row of simple white markers bearing crosses or Stars of David. They add up to only a tiny fraction of the price that has been paid for our freedom. 34
Each one of those markers is a monument to the kinds of hero I spoke of earlier. Their lives ended in places called Belleau Wood, The Argonne, Omaha Beach, Salerno and halfway around the world on Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Pork Chop Hill, the Chosin Reservoir, and in a hundred rice paddies and jungles of a place called Vietnam. 35 Under one such marker lies a young man—Martin Treptow—who left his job in a small town barber shop in 1917 to go to France with the famed Rainbow Division. There, on the western front, he was killed trying to carry a message between battalions under heavy artillery fire. 36 We are told that on his body was found a diary. On the flyleaf under the heading, “My Pledge,” he had written these words: “America must win this war. Therefore, I will work, I will save, I will sacrifice, I will endure, I will fight cheerfully and do my utmost, as if the issue of the whole struggle depended on me alone.” 37 The crisis we are facing today does not require of us the kind of sacrifice that Martin Treptow and so many thousands of others were called upon to make. It does require, however, our best effort, and our willingness to believe in ourselves and to believe in our capacity to perform great deeds; to believe that together, with God’s help, we can and will resolve the problems which now confront us. 38 And, after all, why shouldn’t we believe that? We are Americans. God bless you, and thank you."
Thank you for posting this.
Can I just ask, what’s the reason you have this today. We have ours Remembrance day on Nov 11th, the end of WW1, so I was wondering what the significance of today is for Americans.
November 11 in the US is Veterans Day, a day to honor all out veterans. That holiday originally started out as Armistace Day,but after WWII became Veterans Day. Today’s holiday, the last Monday in May, started out after our Civil War as “Decoration Day”, the day to decorate the graves of the fallen of that war. With all the subsequent foreign wars since then, and especially after WWI, it became the holiday it is now today to honor all of our war dead.
Thanks stik.
Can’t say it enough- big thanks to all the vets here and elsewhere. There’s no way I can thank you guys enough…
Amen to that!
Memorial Day is special to me as my cousin Tech 4 Eugene Guyotte died just a few hours before the war ended in Germany. He was like my older brother. We had his body returned in 1948 and he was buried locally. His mother refused to accept the flag .It was presented to my mother, then to me. We never knew why his mother wouldn’t accept the flag. I have it in my hobby room with his photo the Rainbow Division patch and his rank patch. The phase Some Gave All is also special. I had a custom shirt made with the complete phase “Some Gave All, All Gave Some” on it. Also on the shirt is a photo of a wounded soldier being carried out of the Guadalcanal jungle. I only wear it on Memorial and Veterans Day. Thank you for the post.
On Memorial Day and Veteran’s Day of every year it’s often a time I think of those who fought and died for our freedom particularly during WWI and WW2.
Thanks, everyone!