Memorial Day and What We Should be Remembering

Canada Free Press ^ | 05/25/15 | MICHAEL FUMENTO

[Sean_Anthony]

The prayer to St, Michael the Archangel: Entreats the Archangel to "defend us in battle" and "be our protection" against wickedness

It’s Memorial Day in America. Time to celebrate spring with barbecues and the first trip to the beach. Solemnity is essentially forbidden. Except among we “brave few,” as Shakespeare famously put it in Henry V, “We band of brothers.”

Ask a veteran what combat is like and you’ll get as many different answers as there are vets. Still, the clichés hold true: “All your senses are heightened;” “It’s a mixture of fear and excitement;” “It’s the most alive you’ll ever feel;” and yes, Winston Churchill’s famous declaration that “nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.” After being the proverbial ducks in a shooting gallery in one particularly vicious ambush in Iraq, the men I was with and I began laughing hysterically upon reaching safety.

But there seem to be some universal feelings too. You do come away a different person. You do see life differently. Things that once seemed terribly important, and remain so to others, now strike you as insipid. I remember seeing people lined up at an Apple Store to be among the first to buy the last I-whatever and I wanted to yell at them “Why don’t you line up to get a life!” (And forget about enjoying amusement park rides.)

[zot]

Thanks for posting this.

[zot]

We watched the Memorial Day Concert on PBS last night and found it to be excellent. The best I have seen.

http://www.pbs.org/national-memorial-day-concert/home/