Memorial Day… always comes on a Monday.

The all important three day weekend. Sales on mattresses and big screen TV’s. Beach, sun, the start of summer.

I am rather quiet on these days. You see, there is another reason for this holiday.

Long forgotten in the lowered prices, special discounts and overstocked beer coolers.

I will never forget. Ever.

Below is the uncle I never met. He fought in Europe and was one of the second groups to hit Normandy a few days after the D-Day Invasion. He never left France, and will remain a part of that place forever. The French have always been so wonderfully… respectful… of the men and women that fought for them. Really. I am sure he would have like it to come home to Joplin and rest near the corn fields and coal mines that dot the landscape around my mother’s old town.

My mom kept this picture in her wallet until the day she died. He was never forgotten.

He didn’t pitch a fit. He didn’t cry or whine or set up a tent on Wall Street. He did what had to be done.

General Patton once said: “It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather, we should thank God that such men lived.” Yes. We do.

And while we face evermore challenges to what these brave men and women fought for, I will celebrate the courage, honor and pure balls-to-the-wall guts they had.

I’ve known many of them. Proud to have known them. A pleasure, really.

So here is one of the best, singing one of the best… for all you men and women who gave the ultimate sacrifice.

And dad… thanks. Thanks so much for your service. I miss you.

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