Memorial Day 2016

Often our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines are called upon to face unimaginable challenges and dangers. These are ordinary men and women who reach down inside themselves and find the courage to persevere. Elmer Davis wrote why these people are important to our country. He said, "This nation will remain the land of the free only so long as it is the home of the brave."

When a man or woman joins the U.S. military they pledge to defend the Constitution, and in doing so, they accept the duty to defend the ideals that this country was founded on.

Those who wear the uniforms of our country do so because they cherish the ideal that is the United States of America. The defense of that ideal is truly a noble act, and Memorial Day is the one day when we remember those whose lives were lost preserving those ideals. The noble deeds of those brave souls are remembered and passed on to future generations. As we honor them let us be grateful that they were there for the nation when they were needed.

Civil War brevet major general and Medal of Honor recipient Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain wrote: "The power of noble deeds is to be preserved and passed on to the future."

Those deeds help to define us as a people and they set a standard of courage for future generations to aspire to.

On this Memorial Day, we owe it to those we remember to explain to children why the defenders of our nation are heroes and why we are indebted to them.

Jack Dragoni attended Boston College and served in the U.S. Army in Berlin and Vietnam. He lives in Chaffee, Missouri.