Today We Honor the Fallen
Memorial Day is so much more than a extra day off from work or a day to barbecue with friends and family.
Many think Memorial Day is like Veterans Day but it isn’t. Yes it does show support for our troops, but for the soldiers that gave all of us everything they had to give.
Again no day is a bad day to thank a vet but if we become convinced that Memorial Day is about those of us that served and came back home, we miss the point. Memorial Day is more somber, it is about those who fell in battle and never again got up, it is about those who gave the ultimate sacrifice, it bluntly is about those who died.
Today at some point just pause and think about that. Think about the 4,400 of our US service members that have fallen in Iraq, the 2,000 in Afghanistan, the 47,000 in Vietnam, 33,000 in Korea, 291,000 in WWII, 53,000 in WWI or perhaps the 212,000 that fell on both sides in the War Between the States.
To put it in perspective here are just some of the memorials we owe.
1American Civil War 1861–1865 750,000
2World War II 1941–1945 405,399
3World War I 1917–1918 116,516
4Vietnam War 1961–1975 58,209
5Korean War 1950–1953 54,246
6American Revolutionary War 1775–1783 25,000
7War of 1812 1812–1815 15,000
8Mexican–American War 1846–1848 13,283
9War on Terror 2001–present 6,7171
10Philippine–American War 1899–1902 4,196
Please join us in remembering.