Memorial Day - Remembrance Day

America has been blessed as no other nation in the world has ever been blessed. History is our great teacher attesting to that fact. When Alexis De Tocqueville toured this country in the late 1830s he started in New York and worked his way west, all the way to the territory of Michigan where he was confronted with one of the reasons America was considered a great and blessed country.

On the banks of the river called "De Toir" ("the narrows" in French) he found a city that truly remembered the sacrifice rendered by so many in the Revolutionary War. De Tocqueville linked that remembrance with the continued blessings America was receiving.

As a child growing up in Detroit a hundred years later, during the Great depression, as bad as things were, I can still remember how exciting the events of Memorial Day and Independence Day were. How exciting it was to see Dough boys of World War I marching and a few gentlemen in their late 80s dressed in the blue uniforms of Michigan's Civil War veterans seated on platforms or riding in touring cars. The city still rememered.

I remember V-E and V-J days while in High School and especially that some of my former classmates never were to come home from Europe. They are still there, lying under beautiful white crosses in the American cemetery in Luxembourg; grave sites my wife and I visited just last year.

America must continue to remember if it is to continue to be blessed. Memorial Day must be more than picnics, time off from work, and fireworks. Schools must spend time refreshing the memories of all students of our heritage, of those who died and those who served, including those who are currently serving on two foreign fronts doing battle to ensure our nation's security. The media must put "Remembrance on the top of the list of articles and stories they print and present. We simply must remember! We owe it to all who have given their all for the freedoms we enjoy.

At the Korean War Memorial in Washington D.C., a Memorial the dedication of which I was pleased to be present in 1995, being a veteran of that war, these words are engraved above the 53000 American and 650000 Koreans and others who died in that horrendous conflict, "Freedom is not Free". Poignant words, and so true. Words to Remember!

Gerald W. Stokes
Musings from the First Coast