Monday, May 29, 2006

Happy Memorial Day!

I’ve tried scratching out a few different blog posts on what today means to me, but nothing was sounding quite right.  The best thing I can do is just point back to what I wrote last year because that really rings quite true to me.

Here in the US, Memorial Day is about honoring vetrans who’ve given their lives in service to this nation so that the rest of us can have safer lives in a country where freedom rings.  Regan said it so poignaintly when he spoke of our great land being a shining city calling to others.  This shining city (warts and all) is what it is in no small part due to folks in our military who’ve made sacrifices most of us can’t fathom.

Memorial Day isn’t just about grilling burgers on the grill, although I did that.  It’s about reflecting on what others have done so that your life is better than what they might have had.  You don’t have to limit that to folks in the military members, and you certainly don’t have to limit that to the borders of the USA.

I spent some quiet time today looking at a picture of an airplane on my wall, painted as a tribute to 24 of my friends and comrades who lost their lives in a crash some years ago while flying on a mission in Alaska.  I spent some significant time today thinking about the hard work my parents and their forebears have laid in to help me get where I am today.

Regardless of where you come from, regardless of what nation you call home, take some time and think of those who’ve sacrificed to help you have the life you’ve got.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

The road I take to drive to work every day is very special: the milestones are not the regular ones but commemorative ones.

This road is named "Freedom Road" because it was massively used by the US forces when liberating the region where I live.

In some villages, where the milestone is in a good spot, they honor it with local and US flags, flowers and names of the KIAs of this place.

I feel glad to have visible testimonies of this kind so the sacrifices of the past are not condemned to oblivion (and, hopefully, the errors of the past not bound to be redone).

Jim Holmes said...

Thanks for the great mental picture from the other side of the pond, David. It's good to hear things like that from folks outside our own country.

You're absolutely right about the value of having those testimonies visible to all. It's so important to reflect on these things occasionally!

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