Healthy Veteran Highlights • May 2022

[NOTE:  While we recognize that Memorial Day is focused on honoring our fallen comrades of times past, we at the National Center for Healthy Veterans also seek to honor and serve our living Veterans.  The following message will do both.]
 

“Where Would We Be Without Them?”
 

On this Memorial Day 2022, we must ask ourselves a very important question: “Where would we be without our Veterans?”  What if they had concluded it was too windy, too wet, and too uncomfortable to venture onto the beaches of Normandy in June 1944?  Gratefully, they didn’t ask such a self-serving question — they were there, they went across the beaches, and they unhinged an entire continent from an evil empire, they were “all in” … on behalf of future generations.  As a result of their efforts, and the continuing efforts of our troops and families of today, we remain the Land of the Free, and the Home of the Brave. 

Dr. Ben Carson has often said “If you want to be free, you must be brave.”   America remains the Land of the Free because of our brave veterans who gave their very lives for the future of America.

Perhaps a few mental snapshots will bring this sober remembrance into better focus for all of us:

“Blades of Grass and Pure White Stones,” the title of a song written by recently deceased Senator Oren Hatch, commemorates Arlington Cemetery and the countless rows of grave markers, representative of fields around the world where our nation’s noble warriors have been laid to rest.  At Arlington this Memorial Day weekend, every grave will have an American flag, carefully emplaced by many volunteers and fellow warriors, and overwatched by the measured foot beat of the U.S. 3d Infantry “Old Guard”– an act of utmost honor, appreciation, and reverence.

Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address:
“… It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.  It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us – that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion – that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain – that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” 
 
From the Apostle Paul, “The time of my departure has come.  I have fought the good fight.  I have finished the race and I have kept the faith.”  On Memorial Day, we honor “the good fight” of each of our faithful fallen warriors.

From the great Roman orator Cicero, “Poor is the nation that has no heroes, but poorer still is the nation that having heroes fails to remember and honor them.”  May we honor those who fight, bleed, and die for us and future generations.  Our nation is at true peril when we fail to remember those who have made it all possible.
 
For the family who has lost a loved one in the military, every day is Memorial Day.  Perhaps that should be true for all of us. The message on Memorial Day 2016 is simple:  We as a nation honor those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice on our behalf.  We pray for God’s abundant comfort for those loved one’s left behind, including those fellow warriors saddled with the guilt of survival.  We also thank, affirm and pray for those who serve today, along with their committed families. 

Where would we be without them?  Gratefully, we don’t have to ask that question.  They have always been there for us. 

Now … we must be there for them, America.