Memory

Wouldn't it be great if Americans spent the Memorial Day weekend remembering those who sacrificed for our freedom?

For a little background on this particular observance, visit http://www.usmemorialday.org/backgrnd.html. It's great to thank God for our noble forbears who sacrificed so much for us. They preserved not only our freedom, but also liberated tens of millions around the world. They ended slavery in the United States and in many occupied lands.

My father and my next older brother served this country in time of war. Neither of these men sought careers in the military - they would gladly have avoided service. They were like most men who have fought for our nation - reluctant.

My father was a combat correspondent in the US Marine Corps and made three invasions during World War II, including Okinawa. He joined the Marines when "his number was up" in the draft, and used his skill in photography to win a berth in a service he preferred. He spoke little about his time in the Marines, but he won a citation from the Navy Department for his work, and you have probably seen his film. You see, the Marines had color movie film, and he shot a great deal of spectacular combat footage. Until budgets and computer graphics permitted another approach, many war films used combat footage from men like my father. My dad took a low-paying civil service job during the Korean War to avoid a return engagement. With three little boys, he just couldn't give Uncle Sam more than three years in combat.

My older brother joined the Army and attended Officer Candidate School, because his effort to join the Peace Corps to avoid military service during the Viet Nam War didn't work out. After billets around the world, he got sent to Saigon and commanded a truck company. He, too, said very little about his time in the war zone.

One of my junior high school classmates died on the USS Liberty in the Six Days War on June 8, 1967. His loss was part of the amazingly small minority of American warriors who die in action. Many more are wounded and continue to pay with their personal sacrifice until they reach the end of their days.

Both my father and my brother have gone home to God, passing away many years after they ended their military service. This is the normal cycle of events for Americans who serve in war. My schoolmates had fathers who flew bombers, served in the Signal Corps, were quartermasters in Australia, and so on. Millions of American men and women served honorably to defend our nation in war and in peace, and returned to America to live out their lives with the rest of us, fortunate to be free in a world that is far better for their efforts.

When you pick up the tab at the airport Starbucks for the uniformed soldiers in line ahead of you, or make your contributions to the many worthy charities that help them and their families, what a tiny repayment you make for the work they do.

Here is a pitifully incomplete list of places you can put in a helping hand:

Air Force Aid Society
Coast Guard Foundation
National Military Family Association
Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society
Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation
USO
Wounded Warrior Project

On Monday, May 25, 2009, flag etiquette calls for us to fly the flag at half staff until noon, then raise it fully.

That flag flies over the only land our nation claims in countries around the world where Americans have given the last, full measure of sacrifice for the freedom of complete strangers - our military cemeteries. It also flies over cemeteries here at home where the honored dead bear testament to the willingness of this great nation to rescue those who cannot survive without our help. It flies over court houses and legislatures where Americans have for more than two centuries governed themselves by mutual consent. It flies over schools, where the future of the nation rests on the lessons being learned. It flies on the moon, where the only nation on earth that ever landed human beings and brought them home again visited in peace.

Oh, how I pray on this Memorial Day that the flag may continue to fly over a free land! How I fear it will not! It would be an incalculable tragedy for all the sacrifice made by so many millions of uniformed soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen, and coast guardsmen to be squandered by the current generation of Americans.

Do not let the great work of so many men and women living and dead be lost to the usurpers who would steal your freedom, cheat your children of their inheritance, and surrender our culture to vandals from abroad. Stand up for the freedom we knew not so long ago, and turn these sorry wretches out of office. Start with your municipal elections this fall. Make them a referendum on freedom. Send the politically correct, tax-and-spend progressives packing. Don't elect school board members who celebrate "winter holiday" instead of Christmas. Don't approve of school books that revise American history. Continue in 2010 to the state and federal elections to support only those who believe in your freedom. Vote with your pocketbook. Contribute to the campaigns of honest Americans who want only those who follow the law to live here, and who want the law to follow the Constitution.

Let us on Memorial Day thank God for the sacrifices that our loved ones, living and dead, have made for our nation through military service. And let us dedicate our lives to preserving the heritage they served to defend.