What does Memorial Day mean to you. Any good stories? nt

[clarice]

[WinkyDink]

1. My father's WWII Silver and Bronze Stars.

[clarice]

2. Wow !!!!!! a true hero. Thanks Winky. nt

[Frustratedlady]

3. I'm just heading out to plant pots of flowers for the graves.

I used to decorate 18, but it got to be a big job. I now decorate at 3 cemeteries and get most of them decorated and remember the rest. All of those cemeteries have the Avenue of Flags lining the drives and it sounds so lovely to hear them flapping in the wind...so majestic. The VFW decorates all the vets' graves, of which I have many and it feels good to stop for a moment and acknowledge them. None died in service, but did serve in wars, unlike some of our most vocal congresscritters.

[clarice]

5. Wonderful ! A prime example of ACTING progressive instead

pretending to be. Good for you !!!!!

[hrmjustin]

4. My cousin was killed in Iraq by another Us soldier and we I remember him on this day.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_of_Phillip_Esposito_and_Louis_Allen Louis Allen was my first cousin.

[clarice]

6. My heart goes out to you and yours for your losses. Heroes. nt

[hrmjustin]

7. Thank you!

[clarice]

8. You are more than welcome. I will keep Louis and Philip in my thoughts this weekend. nt

[TlalocW]

9. It's pretty much just my Mom and me this year

Two siblings are usually too busy to drive halfway across the state to decorate graves, and the sibling and family that live 10 miles from her don't believe in Memorial Day for religious reasons. The belief they claim is that the grave doesn't truly hold what the person is/was (the soul) so there's no point to decorating graves by some weird logic. I think it's just so the brother-in-law can get in another day of fishing.

I drive her about 50 miles to her hometown where everyone is buried. Sometimes uncles and cousins are there, and we have a dinner afterward, but this year, everyone is doing their own thing. My dad's grave (and the flag the cemetery puts up for him like they do all veterans) are unique in that he has two flat stone markers at his gravesite for military duty - he turned 18 in 1945 and joined the Navy, even got out to the Pacific, and then the war ended pretty quickly after that, and he was discharged. Then because he hadn't put in enough time, he was drafted into the army during the Korean War.

TlalocW

[Brickbat]

10. A memorial service in a small-town high-school gym with a junior playing "taps" on a school-rental

trumpet. Cake and coffee with the Auxiliary. The very best and worst of nostalgia.