Thoughts About Memorial Day - 2018

You find a lot of veterans going all the way back to the Civil War in my hometown cemetery.

Dad, just before being deployed in the 40's.

After so many years of posts about Memorial Day, I had some fun this morning going back through the SCU archives. I originally shared this post in 2015. Each new year it seems like we get farther and farther away from what the holiday was originally meant to represent.

I feel like it was only yesterday I was getting ready for the Memorial Day Parade in my hometown of Painesville, Ohio. Being in the marching band, and our uniforms being 100% wool, all we wanted was a cold late May day. I'm not sure any of us really understood the meaning of Memorial Day, other than it signified the start of summer!  And things haven't changed very much. It seems the real meaning of the holiday is a little lost.

Here's a short history lesson from Wikipedia...

Memorial Day is a federal holiday in the United States for remembering the people who died while serving in the country's armed forces. The holiday, which is observed every year on the last Monday of May, originated as Decoration Day after the American Civil War in 1868, when the Grand Army of the Republic, an organization of Union veterans — established it as a time for the nation to decorate the graves of the war dead with flowers. By the 20th century, competing Union and Confederate holiday traditions, celebrated on different days, had merged, and Memorial Day eventually extended to honor all Americans who died while in the military service. 

So, on this Memorial Day in 2018, it's a time to honor those who not only died fighting for our country and democracy, but those who have served and continue to serve. 

My Dad passed away at 93 and served in WWII but a couple of years before he died we did a trip together to Washington D.C. with HonorFlight.org. It was an amazing memory-making trip that can never be topped. To our son Brian who continues to serve, my brother-in-law Randy who never takes off his Marine baseball hat and to so many friends and associates who have served in the military - thank you for your sacrifices and your love for freedom.

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Honor Flight Network is a non-profit organization created solely to honor America’s veterans for all their sacrifices. We transport our heroes to Washington, D.C. to visit and reflect at their memorials.

Top priority is given to the senior veterans – World War II survivors, along with those other veterans who may be terminally ill. Of all of the wars in recent memory, it was World War II that truly threatened our very existence as a nation—and as a culturally diverse, free society. According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, an estimated 640 WWII veterans die each day. Our time to express our thanks to these brave men and women is running out. 

​Honor Flight has 131 hubs in 45 states and since 2005 has transported over 180,000 veterans to Washington and over 120,000 accompanying guardians on their trips. To find out more about HonorFlight.org, and how you can volunteer or get a veteran from your family on one of the trips, just click their banner on the right.

HonorFlight.org has a great tag line...      

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 “We can’t all be heroes. Some of us have to stand on the curb and clap as they walk by.” 
     Will Rogers

Dad's the first one on the left - Tom Brokaw called them the "greatest generation". Hanging out with these guys for a couple of days it wasn't hard to understand why.

Our son Brian and my Dad, reflected in the Vietnam Memorial