Memorial Day has come and gone for this year. For some, it was just another day, and for others, it was a time to reflect and pay tribute to the fallen soldiers. Yet many others are left with memories that are glued to the core of their minds.
A man I once met was in the final days of battling cancer and sitting in a wheel chair, hooked to an oxygen tank. He was very weak, but when we shook hands, his grip was firm as if to say he would fight as long as there was strength left in him. He spoke slowly, and his words were deliberate and calculated. He talked for an hour or so until his breath was getting hard to come by. There was no one to visit him as his family was spread out across the country and too busy to come by. He just wanted to tell his story one last time. He wanted to remember, he wanted to feel. He had fought in the Great War, as some call it, and spoke of how it changed his life.
As his eyes grew misty, he remembered the men who had fallen in the battles he had fought in. His friends, whom he once considered family, were gone and his heart was empty. Tears rolled down his cheek as he looked across to me and asked, “Do you think anyone will remember their sacrifice? Will they care?” He pounded his fist into his trembling hand. This gallant warrior passed away the next day. He had spent the last bit of time he had singing his death song. He had lived through some of the bloodiest fighting in World War II and saw fellow soldiers obliterated. He braved many firefights, not for a desire to be a hero but for freedom and for his family back home. He did his duty, and in his heart, he did what was right as many others have done and are still doing. When the rations ran out and all there was to eat were bugs and rats, he didn’t do it because his hunger needed satisfied, it was so he could keep fighting and live to get back home. He didn’t run; he fought so that Americans from that point on would get the chance to live their dreams.
Soldiers, male and female, fight and die today because they are honored to do it. They do it not for the money or fame but for their country. This man died with nothing left but his memories and what he instilled in those who were fortunate enough to have been a part of his life. His end was like poetry as the stories were told one last time of the horrors of war and the good times that were few, but they put a smile on a tormented soul. He had the last word and rightly so because in the end all were left speechless with their own memories coming to life. He, like so many this Memorial Day who have paid the debt of servitude to the people, lays beneath the sod with a small flag that gently waves as the wind drifts across their earthen tombs. We owe them so much more than just a passing moment! Their code of honor and lifestyle of strength and valor needs to be observed and remembered because we must never forget or take for granted their selfless sacrifice in service to “we the people” that makes it possible for us to live our lives in whatever capacity we want. So, hopefully you took a moment during Memorial Day to imagine what your life would be like if so many hadn’t heroically lost theirs. If we do not remember their sacrifices, they will have died in vain, and we will become an ungrateful nation.
