Memorial Day: Honoring Those That Gave Their All

Memorial Day Weekend original purpose was not to be the unofficial start to summer or a day for BBQ's or races. It is a day set aside for this country of ours to honor and remember those that gave the ultimate sacrifice while serving in our armed forces. They gave their lives to preserve our freedom and to protect the lives of their fellow brothers in arms. We should never forget their sacrifice or the ultimate love they showed for our country. 

Tomb Of The Unknown Soilder

There are no better words to commemorate those who died while serving our country than those spoken by Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg. 

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. 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."

To all of those that gave their lives while serving our country - whether it was in a war, a police action, a conflict, an operation, or during peacetime duty - you have mine and my family's deepest respect and thankfulness. We honor you and you sacrifice!