Never Forget...

I borrowed this image from the National Parks Service site on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall. While I am too young to remember the war itself, I was still humbled the first time I visited that wall. I vividly remember one veteran in particular who kept rubbing his fingers across a name, so hard that it was almost as if he was trying to obliviate the name. I couldn't help but wonder if the name he was rubbing was one of a friend who had made the ultimate sacrifice to save the soldier who still stood before me. He then started to sob. I looked to my father to help guide me in what I should do. My dad looked at me and slowly shook his head, then gestured that we needed to move on. When I asked later why he didn't do anything, he quietly said, "Sometimes the best thing to do for someone else is to let them fully experience their own grief."

In honor of that soldier, and the many others before and since, please take the time today to say a prayer for those who have served and the families who support them.