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A Time to Remember

All across this great land, in almost every small town, you can find one. Tucked away on a back street, or maybe a mile or two down the highway north of town, you'll see the 50 year old tank, or a worn smooth artillery piece, or maybe just an old Jeep that sits in the front yard of a rather plain cement block building where the old guys gather. We often use them as a reference point, "just take the next corner past the VFW Hall". We all know they're there, and have been for most of our lives, but we've seen them so long we tend to loose sight of what really is housed within those walls. Today, we remember.

The Nation remembers at the end of each May, and the national news outlets will feature a parade or two, and they will gather at the Mall in Washington DC for a ceremony, but the real story is closer to home, no matter where home is. That's where we really remember. Where those guys were more than names, they were faces, friends, even family.

In this generation, they fought in Iraq, in my generation, it was Viet Nam, before that it was Korea, then Europe, Japan and the Pacific, and however grim and thankless it was, they did their job, came home and went back to work. But they didn't all come home, and they didn't all come home unscarred. Today, we remember.

Like politics, all news is local, they say, because what really matters is what how it impacts you. Memorial Day should impact us all, if we take a moment to observe it. Beyond the 10 minute local parade, the cookout in the backyard, and maybe the trip up north, we need to give a little thought to those guys that gather out at that unpretentious cement block building north of town. They aren't clamoring for our attention, they ask little of us, but we owe them a never ending measure of gratitude and, most importantly, our respect.

Like I said, it's all local, you know who they are in your community, and you know their stories. "Back in the Day", as they say, our small town high school graduated a class of 30, with 18 boys. By my count, at least 8 of them served, 5 in Viet Nam. Today, we remember:

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