Reflections of Memorial Day Published June 12, 2014 By Chaplain (Maj.) Olga Westfall 94th Airlift Wing Public Affairs DOBBINS AIR RESERVE BASE, Ga. -- Last year during Memorial week-end, I instructed a Sunday school lesson to a group of first graders. Before class I asked them if they knew what Memorial Day represented and to my delight, many lifted their hands in the air. For a moment I felt proud, until I heard their answers. "Memorial Day is when the swimming pools open up," someone said. "It means no more school; it's the beginning of the summer break," another said. Others gave answers such as, my family gets together for a barbecue, we attend a family reunion, or on television, lots of sales are going on. No one gave me the answer I was hoping to hear. When I told them that all these things may take place around Memorial Day, they are not the main reason we recognize the day. The children were puzzled. I began to hurt inside, realizing that many in our new generation are growing up without knowing the high price that was paid by our fallen service members for their freedom. We see and hear a lot of commercials about Memorial Day sales, but not a lot about what the day represents. Often families fail to teach what that last Monday of the month means. It's more than just another federal holiday attached to a weekend. Our freedom, we so lavishly enjoy, has a high price that others before us had to pay. Ukraine, the country which I was born and raised, is going now through a difficult time of defending its freedom from Russian aggressors. Not all countries play by the rules. Unfortunately, there are people with evil intentions and ideologies. To protect us from all enemies, foreign and domestic, we need a military of dedicated men and women in the uniform who are ready and willing to respond their nation's call, and defend and protect it. May we never abandon the memory of our nations fallen, or allow their sacrifices to slip from our national conscience.
