On Memorial Day

Being that today is Memorial Day, I think it is appropriate to take a moment and reflect on the many sacrifices that have been made over the years that have enabled people like me to say the things we do. Apart from any politics, from any feelings for or against a certain war, or war in general, it is of paramount importance to recognize that since our country was founded war has been a part of our heritage, and that over that span of time many people have given their lives and livelihoods in times of crisis in order to preserve our great country.

I am not just speaking of those who have died in war, but also those who have survived. It is much easier to recognize the sacrifice made by a fallen soldier, but we must not forget those who have witnessed the atrocities of war and have returned, forever changed, to rejoin the society for which they fought so bravely.

A stark reminder of these people came to me today in the form of an article in The State about a new Pentagon-backed program to develop better prosthetic limbs for the mounting numbers of disabled veterans returning from Iraq. The older model limbs were said to be cumbersome and often so useless that they were shelved, serving only as a daily reminder of the sacrifice made by a disabled soldier.

There will be a lot of high sentence today about how the sacrifices of soldiers have contributed to our most fundamental and basic rights and freedoms, but my point here is aimed at the more mundane priveledges we enjoy, like the ability to button a shirt, to walk to work, or to live an emotionally stable life. Even those soldiers who returned from war with no physical injuries carry with them images so atrocious that those of us who are fortunate enough to be ignorant of the gruesome reality of war will never be able to relate to those soldiers in the same way, on the same level.

My point here is that these people, both alive and dead, have sacrificed so many things that we overlook in the grand scheme of things. So please, whether you are a raging liberal or a staunch conservative, or anything in between, forget about our petty differences, at least for today, and take a moment to reflect on those that we know and those that we don't know who have given up their very existences and plunged themselves into a world of horror and atrocity, all so that we who are lazy, content, and spoiled can know and love our freedoms- not just the freedoms of speech or of religion, but our everyday freedoms like the freedom to dress ourselves and to live reasonably happy lives.

There are many among us who will never see those freedoms again and to those people I say "Thank You, I love you, our country needs more people like you!"