Memorial Day 2022
Monday, May 30th, is this year’s official day for we Americans to remember our fellow military men and women who, through the decades, have fallen in combat for all eternity. Lives sacrificed, young lives, mainly, denied the futures we’ve been mercifully granted; lives selflessly given in the defense of our nation’s security and for the retention of our individual liberties. This extraordinary degree of sacrifice is what we all must devote some private time to think deeply about, to consider the individual commitment made, the destructive mayhem of combat, and the overwhelming value and necessity of defending freedom, on this most humbling of America’s deeply meaningful days … Memorial Day.
From World War I to the present, almost 625-thousand American service members, trained and committed to do all in their power to protect their families, and the future of our nation, have perished in combat on distant shores and lands. Sixty-five-percent (0ver 405,000) of those combat losses occurred during World War II, by far the greatest sacrifice of American military lives, since the beginning of the last century, and hopefully never to be experienced and endured in such extraordinary numbers ever again.
Notably, perhaps, if you will, among WW II fallen, is the fact that America’s Mighty Eighth Air Force, which originated in Savannah, accounted for 26,000 airmen killed over the war-ravaged and deadly 1942-1945 skies of Western Europe. Those heroic flyers, a part of the greatest war-time air armada ever known, are represented and remembered by a stunning array of 26,000 48-star American flags (pre-Alaska & Hawaii statehood) on display, through Monday, within the grounds of the National Museum of the Mighty Eighth Air Force in Pooler, GA. One of many such flag tributes throughout our area, and nation, at this significant time, created in respectful and loving memory of all those heroic war-time sacrifices.
This Monday, please do remember the significance of America’s Memorial Day, the specific annual day set aside to reflect on, and be ever thankful for, the ultimate sacrifice made, through the generations, by so many great Americans, to preserve our nation’s sovereignty, security, and our precious freedoms. On Monday, especially, if not every day, please do remember those heroic, life-ending efforts selflessly made by American men and women of extraordinary dedication and courage, made both for our nation, and ultimately, for all of us…..