For retailers,it is a day to host sales, to make a little money.
For many, it is the arrival of summer beach trips, and vacations.
For those who have lost a loved one on in the mountains of Afghanistan, or the jungles of Viet Nam, or in a snowy hedge row in France, it is a day of somber reflection. Find the cost of freedom, look in the eyes of those left behind.
Many who returned from untold wars, really never returned. The evidence of this I can remember, in the cries from the nightmares that my uncle gave in the night,in his dreams from fighting the Japs in WWII. He never returned, for all his days for the most part were spent with a bottle of booze, and his sleeping hours with the ghosts of war.
Today we know a little bit about those who went to do battle to preserve our freedoms. They were white farm boys, and city boys, and they were black men, who were not allowed to vote, or to drink from any water fountain. They were also native born Cherokee, and Lumbee, and of many tribes. They all heard the call to defend our freedom, and way of life. They went, they served, and they spilled their blood, and their spirit in their duty they served us so well.
At the county war memorial in front of the old county courthouse, the name of Jacob Levy still bears the fresh marks left by the granite workers tool. A sober thought, this young man has been added to the list of those who paid the heavy price of freedom. On this Memorial Day let us remember him, and his brothers at arms. Let us not disappoint them for their sacrifice, but let us always remember them all for what they did for us.
