So what do you have planned for Memorial Day weekend? Going to take a trip to the lake, maybe? Load the wife and the kids in the SUV or mini-van and head out for a relaxing, fun-filled four-day weekend at the lake…sounds like a plan, right? Or maybe the lake isn’t your thing, so you head for the beach instead.
Or maybe you’re just going to hang around the house, have a cook-out in the backyard with some friends from work over for the day, sit around and relax, drink beer, burn some dogs on the grille and just marvel at how great life is on this holiday weekend!
Maybe you’re going to take a short road trip and go see some of the family in the next town or the next state over since you haven’t seen them in a while. Once there, then you can sit around and drink beer, burn some dogs and relax…absolutely! After all, you’ve worked hard for this holiday and you sure as hell deserve it!
Really? News flash: you haven’t worked half as hard nor sacrificed half as much as those who really deserve it but can’t enjoy it as you can.
Instead of taking a trip to the lake with the family, a US Army infantryman stationed in Iraq will read an e-mail from his wife about how much she misses him, and about how much everyone wished he could have gone to the lake with them. He’ll read this as he looks at the pictures of his family at the lake having a good time – as good a time as they can, that is, with him half a world away in a place where any moment on Earth could be his last.
Instead of hanging around the house cooking out in the backyard and drinking beer, some US Navy sailors will set up a small, portable grill on the flight deck of their aircraft carrier “somewhere in the Persian Gulf” and will grill US Navy-issued hot dogs and hamburgers, tossing a football around while the dogs are cooking. And they’ll be drinking cokes and Gatorade instead of beer, all the while wishing they were in their own back yard instead of where they really are.
Instead of traveling to the next town over to see family, a US Marine will get in his humvee and drive to the next camp over to see his best friend from high school, a US Air Force Security Forces member who is standing guard at the main entrance to his camp. During the conversation they will have, they’ll both remember the third member of their high school trio who enlisted at the same time as they did, and who was killed in an IED explosion six months ago.
These are the people who REALLY deserve the Memorial Day weekend – them and the hundreds of thousands of people who have, at one time or another in their lives, worn one of the uniforms of the Armed Forces of the United States.
Some of them have been buried in it.
Compared to what they’ve done, you don’t deserve shit.
My “brutha from anutha mutha,” Bulldog, uses a quote in his e-mails that I will try to remember now: “A veteran is one who, at one time or another, wrote a check payable to the United States of America for an amount of ‘up to and including my life.’” Far too many of them have had that check cashed, and it is for them that the Memorial Day holiday was first created.
Keep that in mind this weekend, if you please, and sometime during your busy weekend it would be nice if you and your family could take a moment out to remember those who are currently serving our nation in faraway lands, separated from family, friends, and loved ones. While you’re at it, say a quick prayer for their safe return and for those who have sacrificed their lives protecting your freedom to celebrate the weekend.
IHC
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