THE INCREDIBLE CEREMONY honoring ALL who have served -- even those veterans with no family to mourn for them.

I wish I had known about this when I lived in Virginia.

AMERICA'S HONOR.

A VISIT WITH THE OLD GUARD:



Dedication.

THIS MEMORIAL DAY is worth a moment of our time to reflect on all that has been given so that we can enjoy our way of life.

MILITARY.COM: Make Memorial Day every day.

THESE FLAGS FLY

to remind of the sacrifice that made America great. The second picture is of a MIA flag that flies at his house 24/7.

HERE ARE two pictures from the Fannin County war memorial taken today just after a Memorial Service had concluded:

There are five granite slabs (at each point of the star) that contain the names of all military service members from Fannin County in wars dating from the Civil War to Iraq/Afghanistan.

THE MEANING OF MEMORIAL DAY from an American immigrant to Israel.

A REMINDER FROM 155 YEARS AGO: November 19, 1863

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—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.

President Lincoln's dedication of Soldier’s National Cemetery, a cemetery for Union soldiers killed at the Battle Of Gettysburg during the American Civil War.
November 19, 1863.

VICTORY GIRLS: Why red poppies on Memorial Day.

A MEMORIAL DAY salute to sacrifice.

JOCKO WILLINK: Remember Me.

MEMORIAL DAY 2018: Another reminder that our freedom didn't come cheaply.

It’s all too easy, especially for those of us blessed to have grown up in this great land, to take our liberty for granted. We forget that freedom isn’t free. It must be paid for, and not just once.

Again and again, Americans have stepped forward in a moment of crisis and put their lives on the line.

They fought in the American Revolution – both in the heat of summer and in the dead of winter, when snow blanketed the ground, supplies were low, and the outlook was bleak.

Our patriots prevailed, but the struggle for freedom didn’t end there. It has played out on many other battlefields in the years since. Antietam and Gettysburg. Belleau Wood and Cantigny. Iwo Jima and the Bulge. Heartbreak Ridge and Hamburger Hill. Baghdad and Kabul.

It’s their sacrifice we mark on Memorial Day. And while we feel so much sadness for their loss, I think there is something else we should consider when we recall those who fell in battle.

It comes down, I believe, to what motivated those brave men and women to do what they did. Imagine walking towards danger and possible death when every fiber of your body is screaming at you to seek shelter. What makes you march toward the guns rather than flee from them?

A soldier, it is said, fights not because he hates who is in front of him, but because he loves who is behind him.

I think that’s what it all comes down to. Those we commemorate on Memorial Day fought for mothers and fathers. For sisters and brothers. For sons, daughters, comrades, and all others they held dear.

America remains worth fighting for.

THE PRICE OF FREEDOM.

MEMORIAL DAY 2018: All posts today will be dedicated to the memory of those men and women who served - and died - so that the United States of America can remail free.

Remember: Freedom isn't free.