ArtFriend

Sometimes we get caught up in the parties and picnics and BBQs of Memorial Day and forget the true reason of the holiday - to honor and remember those who served in the armed forces. If not for their sacrifices, we would not be able to enjoy the freedom we have today. As they say, freedom is not free. Lincoln said it best in the Gettysburg address:

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.

anattaboy

Good call Art. I was peacetime but have a nephew who gave the ultimate for my freedom in the buschwar. I grant him my amnesty...he was only 19. Have not found a replacement yet......

ArtFriend

I am sorry about your nephew. Huge sacrifice.

ArtFriend

This was taken at the military cemetery at Ft. Snelling in St Paul MN yesterday.

TroyW

I'll give my thanks to the soldiers on the ground, but not those who made the decisions to go to war.

anattaboy

Nice pic Art.

anattaboy

Troy, I hear what you are saying. I was adamantly against my sons joining for this latest conflict but if I were still in would have done my duty.
For all who have fought for me and mine I am grateful.

ArtFriend

I don't think anyone wants war... but we need the armed services to protect our country from those who do. My dad was in WW2 (Pearl Harbor). Now that was a war we needed to fight.

Tang

Thank you all who served.

kk1k5x

U.S armed forces could be living in peace, were it not for the idiot leaders that initiate the wars. While I respect the courage and bravery it takes for one to serve until the very end, none of the latest casualties ever had to occur. People who perished in those conflicts gave their lives for a scumbag government that doesn't give two clicks about their well-being. The U.S has not faced any real danger to their sovereignty, yet the country decides on its own that killing innocents is perfectly fine in other parts of the world. WW2 was the last war (and should have stayed the last war) anyone ever had to fight.

trachemys

What they swore:

I, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.

And with that oath they went to their end. For us.

Della1968

While I am against war and agree with some of the comments I don't think today is the day to ponder it. Right or wrong in theory people have died with the intent of protecting our right to disagree.

trachemys

Oh! you who sleep in Flanders Fields,
Sleep sweet - to rise anew!
We caught the torch you threw
And holding high, we keep the Faith
With All who died.

We cherish, too, the poppy red
That grows on fields where valor led;
It seems to signal to the skies
That blood of heroes never dies,
But lends a lustre to the red
Of the flower that blooms above the dead
In Flanders Fields.

And now the Torch and Poppy Red
We wear in honor of our dead.
Fear not that ye have died for naught;
We'll teach the lesson that ye wrought
In Flanders Fields.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Shall_Keep_the_Faith

anattaboy

Good one Della. They passed defending our right to do just about everything we call a freedom--even disagree.