Take a moment to remember

When you wake Monday morning, please take a moment to think of your

fellow countrymen and women for whom this day has been set aside in

remembrance.

Just like you, they rose from their slumber amid familiar

settings, and in the stillness of the morning kissed their loved ones

goodbye. They walked to the door, took one last look at all the

familiar things whose ordinariness had brought them comfort, and said

goodbye.

They said goodbye to their family, their homes, their communities,

their nation, to everything that had nurtured and kept them through

the years. They walked away from all things familial and benign. Then

they took their places on the ships and planes awaiting them, and

were gone.

Most of them would return, but many -- too many -- would never

return. Not in life. And most of these died not as we all hope to

die, surrounded by loved ones amid the still sanctity of home, but in

abject misery and fear. They died far away, among unforgiving

strangers in a foreign land, amid the shrieking chaos and violence of

war.

Who knows what might have become of them, had they lived? They

were the first fruit of our harvest. They were our brightest and

strongest and most courageous, the backbone of our future. Had they

lived, who knows what they might have accomplished? They were heirs

to the fortune of America, children of a rich and bountiful land. How

might they have spent that inheritance?

It is a question almost too terrible to contemplate. They were our

best, our finest. Surely, they would have accomplished great things -

their minds opened by the bright light of democracy. Surely, some

would have become giants in the sciences, in the arts, in philosophy.

They were our pride, the best among us, our golden stars. How much

more proud of them might have we become, had they lived?

It is almost too heartbreaking to contemplate. Because their

laughter and beauty were taken from us. The wars came, as wars always

come, and took them away. They set aside their dreams of family and

fortune and picked up arms for us instead. And they marched off, our

leaders urging them forward, off to the wars.

They went because they knew that freedom is not a right of nature,

but of spirit. It is a voice of the spirit that must be brought and

kept in this world through action. They went because they were the

doers, because they knew the task had fallen to them and no one else,

and they did not shirk from this. They stood and were counted, and

were marched off to war. And when we saw them, if ever again, they

were still and silent, their bodies draped in the flag for which they

had given everything.

They traded the safe comforts of home for the deprivations and

danger of God-forsaken places. They gave up the bounty of America for

the scarcity of hostile lands. They gave up everything for their

nation, for their cities, for you and I.

It is an unnatural thing, for parents to bury their children. A

terrible thing, for a young bride to bury her man. Lamentable and

unkind, it is a sorrow unlike any other. These brave souls -- our

servicemen and servicewomen -- looked upon this sorrow as an

acceptable risk. They looked upon the specter of death and

lamentation for their loves, and concluded that America was worth the

risk.

It is almost too heartbreaking to consider, but please, for just a

moment, consider what was sacrificed so that you might have this day.

Enjoy your day and be happy and carefree with your family and

friends. But please, for just a moment, take time today to remember

those for whom this day has been set aside in remembrance.

Remember that they gave up everything for you.