Today We Remember

Today, some flags were flown half-mast. Most were not. Some people were sleeping off the weekend food and drink hangovers. Most were continuing the revelry with barbeques and beach trips. And as we celebrated the unofficial start to summer like most other Americans, doing much the same, a small part of my brain kept whispering, "Remember".

While some, as evidenced in the Davis Square Live Journal community, believe that Memorial Day is a day to celebrate war, others, like my family, take the time to remember.

Memorial Day is not a day to celebrate. Nor is it a day to warmonger and it certainly shouldn't be a day to further polarize an already split populace.

It is just a day to remember.

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  Buckley, Eugene        US Navy                       WWII      Died: 2005
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  Coughlin, Richard      US Navy                       Vietnam    Died: 2006
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  Greenwood, Robert  US Army                        Korea      Died: 2003
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  Harrington, Fred       US Army Air Corps        WWII      Died: 2004
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  Hersey, Kenneth       US Navy                        WWII      Died: 2009
• 
  
  Jack                         US Army Air Corps        WWII      Died: 2003
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  Mahoney, John         US Air Force                  Vietnam   Died: 2009
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  Nadeau, Ralph          US Marines                    Vietnam   Died: 2008
• 
  
  Thoms, Robert          US Army                        Korea     Died: 2008

All of these men touched me in a way that will remain with me, in my heart, for the rest of my life. Were it not for their service, I wouldn't know them. Were it not for their service, they wouldn't have wended their way into my life to leave their lasting marks, their memories, their stories.

Today, I heard them in the surf as I laid on the beach. I saw them in the light of my child's eyes as she laughed and played with friends at a neighbor's cookout. They were all buried with military honors, though too many of them left this world alone, in pain, and in ways we never would have expected.

So take a moment before you go to bed tonight, please. And just...remember. That's really what this weekend is all about.