Heroes all

It’s Memorial Day. Try to take a minute between the cook out and the swimming pool to remember what the day is all about. I have walked the ground at Yorktown where the Continental Army surrounded and forced the surrender of Cornwallis and wondered how Washington was able to hold his army together six long years. I’ve visited Antietam, Gettysburg and Chickamauga and wondered how two armies could sustain themselves after such losses. I have stood at the Japanese firing positions covering the beaches at Okinawa and wondered how anyone could have gotten ashore alive. I have read scores of books and heard hundreds of stories of undaunted courage and have wondered where America finds such a long, deep and unbroken line of heroes. I have visited Arlington National Cemetery and seen the endless lines of markers - some for the heroes noted above but most for guys just doing their jobs in anonymity – some for men whose heroic deeds are known only to God. Each of those markers and millions more in cemeteries around the world represent a son, a husband, a brother, a father, a friend. Each marker represents not only the life of the fallen but also the scores of lives touched and affected by the fallen. So today we should resolve “that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Note: Lex and family are off to Venice until Thur. amuse yourself with the archive, bookmark this page and check back on Fri.