Hello all, I'd like to honor those vets who have gone before us on this most solemn holiday. Those who were KIA, survived a war or served but now passed should have our grateful thanks for the sacrifices they made for our great country.
Well said Greg. I heard many stories from my Grandmother and Great Uncle about their baby brother who never made it home from WWII. The sadness they felt from his loss never totally left them. I recall reading telegrams from the War Department that my Grandmother kept, notifying his family that he was missing in action, and then killed in action, and later that eyewitness accounts said that his position took a direct hit from a bomb, and his body was never recovered. Those who died to preserve our freedom made the ultimate sacrifice, and we should be thankful. But those parents and family members who never got to see them again paid a very heavy price too.
Several years ago, my nephew was working in the Butcher and Meats section of a local grocery store while he was in college. An elderly lady customer frequently stared at him when she shopped there for meat. And then one day she told him he was a handsome young man, and he looked just like her fiancé who had been killed in northern Africa during WWII. When she told him the name of her dead fiancé, he was stunned to realize that it was my Grandmother's brother, who would have been his Great-Great Uncle. When she came in a couple weeks later, she brought some letters he had sent her shortly before he was killed. She had kept them for nearly 70 years.
The meaning of Memorial Day hits closer to home for some...
