Take Back Memorial Day

Every once in a while I run across an opinion that says what I am feeling so much more eloquently than I could.  Here is the link for the whole article- Take Back Memorial Day .

Here is the part I was especially moved by and wanted to be sure everyone had the chance to see.

 

Take Back Memorial Day written by Christopher Michel

This freedom is a gift across time, given most often anonymously.  And now it is Memorial Day.  How can Americans take it back and do right by the valor that created this day?

By action.  For starters, the National Moment of Remembrance resolution asks that at 3 PM local time on Memorial Day all Americans should “voluntarily and informally observe in their own way a moment of remembrance and respect, pausing from whatever they are doing for a moment of silence.”

Beyond that, Americans can honor the dead by supporting the living, especially those who serve.  Send a note or visit the family of a servicemember who has died.  Visit a veteran who is convalescing.  Make a donation to the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors, Armed Forces Relief Trust, or the Armed Services YMCA.  Volunteer to work with local veterans’ groups. Encourage your employer to publicly recognize the veterans who work with you.  Better yet, commit to hire veterans or military spouses in the coming year.

Visit the graves of fallen soldiers.  Leave a flower on the stone.  Consider the grave and behold the cost of freedom.

Or simply shake a Soldier’s hand.  Support for the troops is more than a sticker on an SUV.  Whatever we do, let’s make it personal, not commercial.

Let us take back Memorial Day, not for abstract ideas or guilt for having forgotten, but to pay a debt.  To remember—and to act on the memory—is the least we can do for the men and women who said, “I will die so strangers’ lives will be better.”  Make Memorial Day a personal reflection of a stranger’s costly gift.