Yes, thank you so much to those that fell, and to all that have served.
My wife and I watched a couple of the great documentaries the past couple days on the history channel. It is fantastic that they are interviewing many of the few remaining men that lived through those battles, as we lose so many to age.
I've never been to Pearl Harbor, but I have been to the Normandy beaches and surrounding area, as well as Verdun and that countryside devastated in both wars. I think that somehow it should be a requirement that young Americans see these places. Maybe there would be more appreciation of what their grandfather's generation did for them, and for what we have in this country. Maybe it would help them put some things in perspective to see all those white stones: square ones, ones made into crosses and stones in the shape of stars of David together in the big cemeteries.
I shudder when I think of the outcome of a similar war with today's generation of American youth being put to the test of courage as compared to the boys of 17 or 18 yrs old that became men in the 1940's.
If you know a veteran, thank him. And rather than buying into political nonsense and revisionist history, at least for a day, thank God that hundreds of thousands made the sacrifices so you don't have to.
R