The credit for this goes to an unnamed warrior, may you remain safe:
May 26, 2008 will be just another day to some Americans. To others it will be a day at the beach, the backyard barbeque or a family picnic. Some may play a little soft ball, drink a little beer or down a couple of Jack's and Coke. That's okay but I hope that before they enjoy the day they stop and reflect on why they are given this extra day off and remind a few of their friends and relatives of what they are remembering.
Memorial Day isn't about us and the good time we may be having.
It is about the Minutemen and the Revolutionary Soldiers, who battled the winter hawk and died from musket and cannon fire, at Concord, Valley Forge and Bunker Hill.
It's about those who fell, when Washington Burned and Old Hickory and his boy's faced the Redcoats at New Orleans.
It's about the blood spilled at Vera Cruz and across the American Plains by Dragoons, Infantry and Cavalry.
It's about Sumpter, Shilo, Gettysburg, with it's seperate infernos of the Cornfield, Little Round Top, the Sunken Road, the Peach Orchard and Cemetary Ridge.
It's about the carnage of Antietam Creek, Fredricksburg and Bull Run.
It's the Monitor and the Merrimac.
It's about "Remembering the Maine" and those who went down in Havana Harbor, followed by the charge up San Juan and Kettle Hills. It's about Dewey ordering Gridley to "fire when ready," in the Phillipines.
It's the Boxer Rebellion, Pershings Pursuit of Villa, and the Nicaraguan Campaign.
China, Chennault and The Flying Tigers; that's who and what it's about.
Belleau Woods, the Lost Battalion, Verdun, and the lost sailors of the North Atlantic; that to.
It's about Pearl Harbor and the young Soldiers, Sailors, Marines and Airmen who were rudely awakened, on a Sunday morning, only to be hurled into eternity by a ruthless foe, who attacked without warning and about all those who survived, who came back swinging and punched the lights out of the Axis War Machine, in never to be forgotten places, such as Wake Island,the Aleutions, Midway, Iwo Jima, Normandy and the Bulge and many more bloody places too numerous to list, places paid for with lives by men, boys, girls and women, who perished, so that we could eat fried chicken and drink beer tommorow.
It's about Patton, MacArthur, Eisenhower Bradley, Doolittle, "Howlin Mad Smith" Bull Halsey and Chester Nimitz, but it's also about the Willie and Joe's, like Audie Murphy, Al Schmidt, Mitchell Page, Guy Gabaldon, Paul Huff, Ira Hayes, Harlon Block, Mike Strank, Rene Gagnon,Jack Bradley, Leonard Lomell,Dick Winters, Bill Guarnier, Donald Malarkey, Commando Kelly and Phil Piazza.
It's about the Fighting Sullivan Brothers, who died together, at Guadalcanal, as their ship, the USS Juneau disappeared beneath the sea, with scores of their shipmates.
It's about the Bataan Death March and the 6th Ranger Battalion rescue mission to Cabanatuan POW Camp.
It's about the Tuskegee Airmen and the Fighting Nisei 442 Regimental Combat Team.
It's about the Berlin Airlift and the airmen, who died, defying the Soviets and the Russian Bear.
It's about Inchon, Pork Chop Hill and the Chosin Resevoir and the blood, frostbite and death that are associated with those places.
It's the Ia Drang, Hamburger Hill, Khe San, Dak To, Chu Chi , Bong Son, and the Mekong River Delta and the Marines, Cav, Infantry, Gunship and River boat crews that perished in the jungles of Vietnam.
It's about SOG, the supposed non entity.
It's about the Wild Weasels and the other Air Force, Navy, Marine,Army and Coast Guardsmen who's only claim to fame is their name on a wall, in D.C.
It's about Glenn Kennedy, Reese Devereux, Odes "Frenchy"Moutardier, Glenn Drake, Carl Forrester,James Dinger,Theodore Vance and Douglas Weiss and some of your fellow soldiers as well.
It's about the broken bones, dysentary, torture and heroism of the men at the Hanoi Hilton,
It's about the rescue of the Mayaguez.
It's about the Marine barracks in Beirut and the Gulf War.
It's about Gary Gordon and Randy Shugart and the eighteen warriors who lost their lives in Mogadishu, while refusing to leave their buddies behind, when there was a "Blackhawk Down."
It's about the Global War on Terror and those who have, continue to and will continue to shed their blood so that the rest of us can live.
Finally, it's about my apology to anyone who I failed to list. The names and places are too many and my sense of memory and history far to inadequate to accomodate.
Now, go hoist your flag, before you hoist your glass. When you do hoist that glass, drink to the memory of our fallen heroes, who made it all possible and who we are privileged to honor and respect on this, their day.
God Bless them and God Bless you who still put it on the line, in harms way.
