Memorial Day--Let us Remember the Fallen

"One pronoun keeps at bay our guilt
  they they they they they they..."
    --Karen Swenson, from her poem, "we"

Flags will fly this week-end.Veterans will be honored--and rightly so. But we also need to be reminded of the longest war in our whole history--which is still going on.

Memorial Day Weekend is not just a holiday--it really is a holy day. When we remember all the blood that has been shed for us and ours.

How many of the speeches we hear will ponder the fact of all the men and women we have lost these last few years? How many will raise the question: will we repeat the same mistakes again that we made after September 11, 2001? Colin Powell was right when he said if we break it we own it. Except we never ponder the deep meaning of those words. How many will ask: can we afford to just continue to fight year after year? The same old excuses follow us today and I am afraid into the future. We have to fight them over there so that we don't have to fight them over here.

Let us this weekend remember the fallen. CNN gives us these figures:

 

3,477 of our troops have died in Afghanistan

20,000 plus have been seriousy wounded

Thousands have come home with PTSD

 

4,802 of our troops have died in Iraq

32,246 have been seriously wounded

Thousands more have come home with PTSD

 

You might want to read Barbara Wagner Duehlm's moving account of her father that fought in World War II and writes thst for her family World WarII was never over. Her story is entitled, "War Without End."

 

When this weekend ends and we return to whatever it is we do--let us pause, not once but often to remember the fallen and all those at home who sit by empty chairs and look at photographs of those that will not come home or came home so broken life will never, ever be the same.

 

 

 

 

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com