Our young nation, a world power, is often engaged in deadly combat. Lost amid the mix of potent weaponry and highly skilled warriors are many who never live to describe the horrors of war.
Mostly young men and women return home, their final resting places in cemeteries throughout the land. They served, they fought, they cried and they died. Their families and friends will celebrate Memorial Day sadly and somberly.
Who knows their final thoughts, their indescribable pain and suffering? What we know is that, yes they fought for their buddies—but they fought for us. They sought no gratitude. They sought no glory.
Uttered often at Memorial Day ceremonies is this declaration: we owe our freedom to those who came home forever young. And we do owe our lives, free from strife and danger, to individuals willing to risk theirs in danger spots in our fractious world.
If our fellow Americans occupying thousands and thousands of gravesites typically unseen except by loved ones could speak to us, they might say:
Pursue peace with passion. Fight to preserve harmony with indomitable patience and persistence. If all else fails, then pick up the torch and relentlessly seek victory in the dreadful event of war.
They might ask something else: wave a flag if you have one, shed a tear for a friend if you can—and call a family and say you care.
The following well-known poem written during World War I by John McCrae, a Canadian physician, poet, soldier, author and artist, is eternally appropriate on Memorial Day.
In Flanders Fields by John McCrae
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