Memorial Day

I think we are very fortunate that although many in our family have served in the Armed Forces, no one that I know of has been killed in war. I think of several friends who have given their lives for our country. I remember most of all the kid who played tuba next to me in our high school band. He was drafted after graduation and sent to Viet Nam where he was killed. Another young man I knew married his high school sweetheart before he was drafted. He, too, died in an ambush. When the Viet Nam memorial was completed in Washington DC, Time magazine had as its cover that week a section of names from the Wall. His name was prominent on that cover.

I dreaded getting drafted. I hated almost every day I was in uniform. But as I look back on it, I can see that my time in the Air Force made a significant impact on my life. I know it shaped my political views and if nothing else made me a "morning person."

At church yesterday, the service concluded with the playing of taps. I thought of those guys I knew from high school days and the thousands of men and women I never knew like them and thanked God for their devotion to duty, their sacrifice, and their memory which is as close to glorious as human beings may come.