This Memorial Day

Though it's denoted by our federal government that yesterday was to be the day in which we take pause, and say thank you as a nation to all who have fallen in it's service, such things should not be reserved for one day each year, then forgotten the other 364 days. Some have a very personal connection to the loss. One day their brother in arms is busting balls about chow and the next moment he's gone. Some are spouses, siblings, parents, and children of the fallen. One day they're saying goodbye to a loved one and the next being delivered a letter of condolence. Maybe it's a friend. Your boy from high school who you mocked for heading off to "be all he could be". And one day you realize he never came back. You run into a family member or a friend, or a Facebook post, and learn that he is KIA survived by a wife and baby daughter.

This is the reality for a small portion of our nation as percentages go, and thank God it is not more than that. But at the same time it's unfortunate that so much of the unimpacted majority still fail to grasp the meaning of the day, even though we just wrapped up almost two decades of war. Just one day, scores of men and women deserve that, a pause, an uninterrupted moment in time used to reflect on the thought of people giving their lives in service to our country. It's not too much to ask everyone to understand what the day means. It's not too much to ask that people realize that if it wasn't in part for the sacrifice of some 2,500 American men dying on the beach in Normandy on D-day we might be speaking German right now under a nazi regime, for example. By all means spend the weekend however you wish, even protesting the very way of life you enjoy, in support of socialism. You have been allotted the ability to do so because men and women were willing to die for that right.

How did I spend the day? I worked. I trained. I spent time with family. And above all I took moments in my day to unplug and reflect. No grand gestures, no large celebrations, but I remembered.