memorial day

[lqhikers]

When we are all out this weekend take a minute to thank those who
served so we can live the great life we do.
Les,
lqhikers

 

[Wandering Sagebrush]

Les, thanks for reminding us. I have a mental list of my childhood friends, their brothers, and my fellow Marines that gave their lives in order for us to have our good lives. I think of them often. As long as we speak their names, they continue to live.

As I age, I remember a quote I saw somewhere. “Don’t resent growing old, it’s a privilege denied many.”

 

[BillTheHiker]

The engraved stone at the entrance to Boise's Veterans Hospital says it all:
"The price of freedom is visible here."

Thank you veterans!

 

[K6ON]

Not long ago I walked through the National Cemetery at the Persidio in San Francisco. It was late afternoon, and the mauve and rosey colors of the gathering dusk tinted the headstones on the graves of thousands of young people who rest within that solemn and beautiful place.
All around me were sensations of life: birds chattering in nearby trees; a passenger plane, scratching the sky, high overhead; the vivid colors of autumn; and the soft, life-bearing wind that rustled my collar and rolled across the gentle sloping land.
Yet, at my feet, there was only the silence of lives that had ended much too soon.
I paused before one shadowed grave, and, looking down into the rich green grass that was his blanket, I thanked the young man that lay within. His sacrifice had assured my freedom; and, though sometimes I seem to take that for granted, on this day, in this place, I could not. For just behind this young man, there slept another. And behind him, another. And row after row of individual lives spread before me, each unique and born with hope; each now closed and sealed in silence by the tongues and hands of tyranny.
It is the courage and generosity of those who died for freedom that has given me my own. Their legacy is my gift, and I hold it with both gratitude and a sense of responsibility.
Standing among them in that hallowed place, I felt their purpose and resolve. For tyranny still walks upon this earth, and, whether it wears the armor of dictatorial authority or clothes itself in the mantle of self-righteous religious zeal, the quest is the same: the denial of individual liberty.
If I am to honor their bequest and to pass it’s richness to those who follow me, then my life must be both a celebration of individual freedom and a vigilant defense against its enemies. Human history has shown that one cannot live without the other: defense without conscience becomes offence; liberty without caution is a timid prey.
Through the fading light of that afternoon, I lingered as with a company of friends and felt the measure of the faith they had held for every man and me.
Robert Sexton

 

[Casa Escarlata Robles Too]

I have been wearing this POW/MIA bracelet for almost 50 years.
I bought it in Salinas Ca. back in 1970.
In 2001 found out James Plowman is from Pacific Grove Ca.
His father was a teacher at PG high.

This info came from a person we were on a European tour with.
He taught at the same school as the father.

At the time James was still MIA but around 2008 his remains were
found and identified.
His name is on the wall in DC.

I always think about the young men,my age now,that gave their lives to
keep all of us free and able to go on with out lives.

The bracelet reads.
LCDR James E. Plowman
USN 24 March 1967.
Thanks to all the vets from all the wars.
Lets not forget.
Frank