Remember
This Monday, May 25, marks another day of remembrance, a cherished event, our National Day of Mourning -- Memorial Day. This is a special time for all Americans to pay homage to those throughout our nation's history who selflessly sacrificed all in order that our nation, the rule of law, and our individual liberty be preserved.
One of the greatest presidents in our nation's history, and certainly the greatest since World War Two, venerated the men and women of the United States military. President Ronald Wilson Reagan was in turn revered and respected by our young defenders of freedom in whatever branch they served, wherever they served.
Our young men and women in the military approved of and admired President Reagan because they knew by word and deed that he truly cared for them, their families, and our nation.
This Memorial Day, it is therefore fitting that we honor our absent brothers and sisters with the words of President Reagan, thoughts he himself put to paper and expressed on another Memorial Day not so very long ago:
"Once each May, amid the quiet hills and rolling lanes and breeze-brushed trees of Arlington National Cemetery, far above the majestic Potomac and the monuments and memorials of our Nation's Capital just beyond, the graves of America's military dead are decorated with the beautiful flag that in life these brave souls followed and loved.
This scene is repeated across our land and around the world, wherever our defenders rest. Let us hold it our sacred duty and our inestimable privilege on this day to decorate these graves ourselves -- with a fervent prayer and a pledge of true allegiance to the cause of liberty, peace, and country for which America's own have ever served and sacrificed.
Our pledge and our prayer this day are those of free men and free women who know that all we hold dear must constantly be built up, fostered, revered, and guarded vigilantly from those in every age who seek its destruction. We know, as have our Nation's defenders down through the years, that there can never be peace without its essential elements of liberty, justice, and independence.
Those true and only building blocks of peace were the lone and lasting cause and hope and prayer that lighted the way of those whom we honor and remember this Memorial Day. To keep faith with our hallowed dead, let us be sure, and very sure, today and every day of our lives, that we keep their cause, their hope, their prayer, forever our country's own."
Remember to proudly fly your United States Flag, but fly it at half-staff until noon, then raise it to its full glory. At exactly 1500 hours (3:00 PM) Monday, follow the honored tradition and stop what you and your friends are doing.
Take a moment to bow your heads and remember your friends, family, and all of the strangers you will never know who gave their lives for us, our ideals, and our way of life.
Sacrifice is meaningless without remembrance.