Memorial Day

Happy Memorial Day.

If I’m being honest, this weekend is often just a relaxing weekend with two Saturdays in it. Two days to sleep in. Four days of school instead of five.

But it should be a day of remembrance for those who have died in war. And it should mean more to me now than it did in, say, 1989 when not that much was happening between war and peace. It was all peace then. Now, soldiers in the middle east is all we know. Terrorism. Isis. Suicide bombers. It’s everyday news. What a shame.

Many, many people have died to defend our cause. My papa went to Germany in World War 2.  He wasn’t among the dead then. He came back. But on this weekend of remembrance, I’m going to repost some stuff about and from him.

That man knew how to love.

This photo shows an album page from my mom’s album. He is pictured with his army brothers. He’s the handsome fella in the middle. And below that picture is a scan of a letter he wrote home to my mom, who was a 1-year-old baby he truly didn’t want to leave behind.

The letter said this:

February 1945
To Daddy’s Darling:

This is the first letter I have ever tryed to write you and I am afraid that when you are old enough to read and write yourself that you will think Daddy is very poor at writing, but someday you will understand that he loves you and Mommy better than anything else in the world.

It was not my idea to be away so much since you were born. It’s that someone with more power than you and I has said I must go. This I have done and I am trying to do a good job so I can come back to you and mommy before too long. Until I see you I want you to be a sweet little girl and do what you mother says. She is a good mommy and will only tell you what’s best for you. I know you will do all this. I only wanted to caution you.

From one who loves you very much,
Daddy

And the following was a poem he wrote from a tent on the battlefield and then later mailed home to Florida.  Remember the men who fight for us. Remember the tents and trenches they sleep in. Remember the people they are missing. Remember the God we pray to. Remember.