A salute to the Military

Today is Memorial Day. I hugged my father good bye this morning as I left to return to Atlanta. He was so emotional about Memorial Day. His frail body shook as he cried about the people who served in the military and who have died or been injured as a result of their service. He asked me to remember them today.

When I was very young, Dad was in the Air Force and we were stationed in El Paso, Texas at Biggs Air Force Base. At that time Dad was part of a squadron of Tanker planes that refueled other planes in the air. I’m not sure about what happened, but one of the planes exploded and the entire crew was lost. As a child, I went with my mother to make condolence calls on the families of the crew members. The flags on the base were flown a half mast and there I felt as if the entire base had become a place of mourning. When the grieving family members weren’t present, there were hushed conversations and quiet remarks made by the wives expressing not only sorrow but relief that it wasn’t one of their husbands.

Growing up in a family where duty to country was honored, I have a great respect for the members of today’s military. They face a greater challenge than generations of military before them. They have to fight on foreign territory without knowing who the enemy is. They fight to stop oppression and build sustainable democracies. Most of all, they fight to protect us from attacks against our own country.

The members of the armed forces leave their families and risk their lives and their safety to eliminate the training grounds that breed terrorists.

I am thankful that they are willing to serve their countries, to risk their lives for me. I know that when a member of the armed forces falls in combat today, the hushed conversations among family members on our military bases are still filled with sorrow and at the same time relief that it wasn’t their husband or father who was killed or wounded.

Members of the military deserve to receive pay and benefits that keep their families off of food stamps. They deserve to go into combat situations with the best equipment and intelligence possible. Most of all they deserve our gratitude for doing a difficult job with honor and for the sacrifices they make on a daily basis.