Memorial Day

bordercollie

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Memorial Day ..Let us take time to remember those soldiers who gave their lives so we could be free. Some never came home.Some were still teenagers, some were sons,daughters some were fathers and mothers, other family members. God bless them all. Most of us have known one of them- our fallen heroes. Remember them and tell the younger generation that it's not just a fun day but a day of remembrance. bordercollie
 
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Keifer

Senior Member
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Right on BC.

A day of remembrance for those men and women who served or are presently serving honorably in our military and maritime services. We owe so much for the sacrifices made by those individuals on our behalf and the behalf of the USA. God bless our service people and the USA.
 

dan900

Member
Judy got it right: "Memorial Day ..Let us take time to remember those soldiers who gave their lives so we could be free."

Memorial Day: General John A. Logan has been credited with starting the official observation following the Civil War to recognize/remember those who lost their lives while serving our country and it's citizens. For some interesting History reading, do a search for General John A. Logan.

Veterans Day in November is observed to recognize/honor those Veterans who served (or are still serving).
 

Jim_S

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Ronald Reagan’s Memorial Day Speech May 26, 1986
Posted by Kemberlee Kaye Monday, May 27, 2019 at 2:00pm

https://legalinsurrection.com/2019/05/ronald-reagans-memorial-day-speech-may-26-1986/#more-284361

“We must always remember that peace is a fragile thing that needs constant vigilance.”

Few in my lifetime have expressed with as much sincere, heartfelt truth the sacrifice made by our brave men and women as President Reagan.

His remarks from Memorial Day on May 26th, 1986 are always worth remembering:
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[ame="http://youtube.com/watch?v=m89-nxpjTq0"]Reagan's Remarks at a Memorial Day Ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery, Virginia — 5/26/86 - YouTube[/ame]
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Full text beneath:

Today is the day we put aside to remember fallen heroes and to pray that no heroes will ever have to die for us again. It’s a day of thanks for the valor of others, a day to remember the splendor of America and those of her children who rest in this cemetery and others. It’s a day to be with the family and remember.

I was thinking this morning that across the country children and their parents will be going to the town parade and the young ones will sit on the sidewalks and wave their flags as the band goes by. Later, maybe, they’ll have a cookout or a day at the beach. And that’s good, because today is a day to be with the family and to remember.

Arlington, this place of so many memories, is a fitting place for some remembering. So many wonderful men and women rest here, men and women who led colorful, vivid, and passionate lives. There are the greats of the military: Bull Halsey and the Admirals Leahy, father and son; Black Jack Pershing; and the GI’s general, Omar Bradley. Great men all, military men. But there are others here known for other things.

Here in Arlington rests a sharecropper’s son who became a hero to a lonely people. Joe Louis came from nowhere, but he knew how to fight. And he galvanized a nation in the days after Pearl Harbor when he put on the uniform of his country and said, “I know we’ll win because we’re on God’s side.” Audie Murphy is here, Audie Murphy of the wild, wild courage. For what else would you call it when a man bounds to the top of a disabled tank, stops an enemy advance, saves lives, and rallies his men, and all of it single-handedly. When he radioed for artillery support and was asked how close the enemy was to his position, he said, “Wait a minute and I’ll let you speak to them.” [Laughter]

Michael Smith is here, and Dick Scobee, both of the space shuttle Challenger. Their courage wasn’t wild, but thoughtful, the mature and measured courage of career professionals who took prudent risks for great reward—in their case, to advance the sum total of knowledge in the world. They’re only the latest to rest here; they join other great explorers with names like Grissom and Chaffee.

Oliver Wendell Holmes is here, the great jurist and fighter for the right. A poet searching for an image of true majesty could not rest until he seized on “Holmes dissenting in a sordid age.” Young Holmes served in the Civil War. He might have been thinking of the crosses and stars of Arlington when he wrote: “At the grave of a hero we end, not with sorrow at the inevitable loss, but with the contagion of his courage; and with a kind of desperate joy we go back to the fight.”

All of these men were different, but they shared this in common: They loved America very much. There was nothing they wouldn’t do for her. And they loved with the sureness of the young. It’s hard not to think of the young in a place like this, for it’s the young who do the fighting and dying when a peace fails and a war begins. Not far from here is the statue of the three servicemen—the three fighting boys of Vietnam. It, too, has majesty and more. Perhaps you’ve seen it—three rough boys walking together, looking ahead with a steady gaze. There’s something wounded about them, a kind of resigned toughness. But there’s an unexpected tenderness, too. At first you don’t really notice, but then you see it. The three are touching each other, as if they’re supporting each other, helping each other on.

I know that many veterans of Vietnam will gather today, some of them perhaps by the wall. And they’re still helping each other on. They were quite a group, the boys of Vietnam—boys who fought a terrible and vicious war without enough support from home, boys who were dodging bullets while we debated the efficacy of the battle. It was often our poor who fought in that war; it was the unpampered boys of the working class who picked up the rifles and went on the march. They learned not to rely on us; they learned to rely on each other. And they were special in another way: They chose to be faithful. They chose to reject the fashionable skepticism of their time. They chose to believe and answer the call of duty. They had the wild, wild courage of youth. They seized certainty from the heart of an ambivalent age; they stood for something.

And we owe them something, those boys. We owe them first a promise: That just as they did not forget their missing comrades, neither, ever, will we. And there are other promises. We must always remember that peace is a fragile thing that needs constant vigilance. We owe them a promise to look at the world with a steady gaze and, perhaps, a resigned toughness, knowing that we have adversaries in the world and challenges and the only way to meet them and maintain the peace is by staying strong.

That, of course, is the lesson of this century, a lesson learned in the Sudetenland, in Poland, in Hungary, in Czechoslovakia, in Cambodia. If we really care about peace, we must stay strong. If we really care about peace, we must, through our strength, demonstrate our unwillingness to accept an ending of the peace. We must be strong enough to create peace where it does not exist and strong enough to protect it where it does. That’s the lesson of this century and, I think, of this day. And that’s all I wanted to say. The rest of my contribution is to leave this great place to its peace, a peace it has earned.

Thank all of you, and God bless you, and have a day full of memories.

This is a repost from 2016.
 

bordercollie

Gold Site Supporter
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Excellent post Jim.
It makes me sad to read about these hardships and horrors that our soldiers faced. When I was little, I remember my Aunt , a nurse in the army with the rank of major (WWII) , told of horrors her nurses endured and how a few didn't make it out of the war zones where they tried to keep young men alive. Then I feel great sadness when I remember the little place I grew up in and how so many didn't come home from WWII. One in particular was a friend of my Daddy's . His last name was MacDuffie and he was still a teenager when he was lost at sea ( in a submarine). My dad was also a teenager in the navy but shipboard in the Atlantic . He made it home without harm.
I am truly sorry so many fine Americans were lost and will always hold this day as special for that reason.
I remember Veteran's Day for the sacrifices they made also. I was good friends with a POW that was in a German prison camp . He would speak very little of those horrors there but I could see it in his eyes.I will tell a short memory on Veterans Day , that he told me.
God bless all of them- our fallen heroes, and the veterans I can still tell Thank you to now.
 

cchaffee

Member
I want to say thank you to Jim, i have always loved to hear the speeches of Ronald Reagan, and i can't think of anything better for Memorial Day.

Monday I spent over 4 hours alone in the RTV in the mountains here in PA, right next to God....

...and God Bless all that gave all.
 

wheezer

Goofy Member
Site Supporter
Hey Bordercollie, it's been a few years since I logged in. Glad you are still the mainstay of this group. Thanks for remembering our vets on memorial day!:thankyou2:
 
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