On this Memorial Day – marking the 50 year anniversary of the loss of my best friend and brother Peter Rich – my heart and soul was comforted by the sentiment best expressed yesterday by former President Obama : “We can never truly repay the debt we owe our fallen heroes. But we can remember them, honor their sacrifice, and affirm in our own lives their enduring ideals of justice, equality, and opportunity for which generations of Americans have given that last full measure of devotion.”
Gold Star family member
Please share widely!
terrymcginty says
Fred –
Thank you for your sacrifice. None of us can possibly know what it is like to be in the shoes of a gold star family member. And every Gold Star sacrifice is as unique as the person who made that sacrifice.
I wish that our President, who disgraced our country yesterday, Memorial Day, with his tweet about himself, and those political candidates around the country who campaigned yesterday and have forgotten (if they ever knew), what Memorial Day is about, could somehow grasp what this day means to a Gold Star Family. But, then again, he is doing everything in his power to replace sacred democratic institutions and democratic traditions with a cynical and mindless personality cult.
He will fail. The sacrifice of our fallen and wounded demands it.
The democratic constitutional republic of limited government and checks and balances envisioned by James Madison will emerge like a phoenix, wounded, and yet stronger, well before this sad man is in his grave.