Patriot Publishings

Memorial Day is a day to remember our fallen. Our men and women of uniform, who have given all they had, for their country. Memorial Day should not just be a ‘day off’ in May. Memorial Day should be every day, especially if you appreciate your freedoms.

Do you appreciate your freedoms?

I’ve had to experience many funerals/wakes of those who paid the ultimate price. I’ve had to read the alerts and headlines, after teammates have perished, and never felt as hopeless as I did upon hearing the news. I, as I am sure many others, carry the guilt (even if just a little guilt) of our fallen brothers and sisters in arms. Guilt that I should have been there to save them, or perish with them. Guilt that I survived my experiences.

Deep down I understand that I could not have stopped their deaths. The guilt remains.

I’ve lost teammates to invisible enemies, such as cancer, and watched a couple of teammates die from diseases they couldn’t beat. I’ve lost teammates in training accidents and freak occurrences. I’ve lost teammates who perished at the hands of others, be it a murderous punk, an unknown assailant, or a driver with road rage. The end results are the same.

Memorial Day is remembering those men and women, to ensure their sacrifices were not in vain, and unfortunately much of society remains engrossed within their electronics/social media involvement, and only think about their dramas (and how to gain more attention from the world).

I cannot make people want to honor our fallen, nor remember them daily, instead of annually, so I ensure I remember each and every one of them. Classmates, teammates and fellow operators will forever live within my memories, to ensure their life is honored the way I believe it should be.

We currently live in a world where, for many decades, some very bad people have been poisoning the minds of children and impacting the future of our country. Evil exists, and while most of us didn’t expect it to be on our doorstep, we took an oath that we take seriously and will continue to uphold the oath of enlistment. We were prepared to sacrifice our lives when we raised our hands and said the oath. That oath has no expiration date.

Many of survived our experiences by luck, some by chance, and many have not. My hope is that the big Man upstairs has a grand plan for me, to do great things and help out those who need it. I survived my incidents/accidents/etc. while some did not. Those are who I honor each day.

Memorial Day is for our fallen and Arlington National Cemetery, along will thousands of other cemeteries, are filled with heroes who answered the call and paid the price. They did it for the idea of keeping this country safe and protecting its citizens. Many will not answer that call.

Take a moment and reflect on what you enjoy daily, hourly, weekly and ask yourself what life would be like living in a country that doesn’t have the same freedoms. Then think seriously about doing some research about those heroes that sacrificed their lives. Pick a war, a conflict, a mission and see the faces of those who died. Perhaps then you will honor those who perished.

Memorial Day should be everyday.

It would be nice if the politicians (ALL of THEM) thought the same thing.