Memorial Weekend all year

Good evening, I hope this blog finds you well.  The Memorial Day Weekend is coming.  It is a weekend which-really-I think of often.  Coming from a family who lends family members regularly to the Armed Forces....Korean War, Vietnam, Gulf, and plenty of peace keeping missions.....Iraq, facets of Afghanistan.....my father, brothers, daughter, Uncle, cousins, son-in-law, nephew....have all spent time defending, in active duty.  Army, Air Force, Marines....so, it is pretty much normal for me to think of soldiers all year long, not just for one weekend or day.  I haven't always agreed with the "why we were there..." reasons or issues presented to us by politicians or media.  One thing I can agree with is Americans understand what freedom means and what it costs to keep it.  Our Nation has not forgotten the wars in which our own soil was red with the blood of our young men...fighting for ideals, for freedom gained or to be lost, for land, for ownership, for love of country.  Our Christian heritage runs strong and deep, my Memorial Day comes every so often when I have a memory of a time when I was just 9 yrs old, standing in an airport, looking out the window into the black night, searching the airplane's windows for my brother's face, and never finding it. I remember the lights on the aircraft, as the plane would crawl away from the "tunnel".... I can feel, every so often, the pain in my heart (and then with tears in my eyes) of feeling like I would never see Victor again....I can feel my heart break.  I remember feeling the void in my heart already, as if he was not coming home. (He did eventually return.) Memorial Day Weekend is a weekend, a year long remembrance, of soldiers who did not come home.....who do not come home.  Although I have only a small pain in my heart compared to others who have lost a loved one in a war or friendly fire, my appreciation runs deep as my love runs deep for all those who have sacrificed and will sacrifice the ultimate price of loss....and pain.....we must remember not only those who have given their lives, but we must remember, in our prayers as well as handshakes and pats on the back, all those soldiers and comrades who have returned home wounded.  The walking wounded, the healing hearts, the loss of loved ones, the missing soldiers never found, and the ones who grieve along side them.  Memorial Day Weekend is a day, for me, that runs all year.  Thank you to all who have served, who do serve, and continue to sacrifice daily.
I hope this blog leaves you well.

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