Memorial Day

[my miss storm cat]

Underage boys who died slow deaths in the hellish, rat-infested trenches of World War I.

Young men who heroically disembarked landingcraft at Normandy, only to be shot dead in the water feet from the shore.

Army nurses who were blown up while treating the wounded soldiers returning from the Battle of Chosin Reservoir in Korea.

Walking, breathing remains of men who witnessed unspeakable horror in the jungles of Viet Nam and who returned shatterd and in pieces that could never be put together again.

Amputees who left body parts on or near the line in the sand.

Marines outside a mosque as the call to prayer begins in a dusty, nameless city in Iraq seconds before sniper fire takes another life...

Soldiers in the arduous terrain in the mountains of Afganistan carrying 100 pounds and yet not complaining...

POWs, MIAs, remembered and forgotten.

Faceless names etched on black granite monuments that bored schoolchildren file past on fieldtrips...

Families, friends...

Those who identify remains and those who try to heal the broken bodies and souls...

The sane and the homeless, the nameless and forgotten who lay underneath white crosses at Arlington and in other cemeteries, the sons and daughters, husbands and wives, lovers and friends, brothers and sisters...

Today we thank all of you for your unfathomable sacrifices and your immeasurable bravery.

You are the reason we're free and we'll always be grateful although it's only on days like these that most of us verbalize it.

It's not enough but it's from the heart so today we remember, mourn for and salute you.

To the veterans and to their families... thank you.