Weather Doesn’t Dampen Tuscaloosa’s Memorial Day Tribute
Several hundred veterans, families and residents paid honor on this Memorial Day to those who sacrificed their lives for our nation. Braving threatening weather they packed the University Mall south concourse for the ceremony that included presenting of the colors by the Paul Bryant High Marine Corps ROTC, taps, the ringing of the navy bell and remarks from Dr. Andrew M. Del Gaudio, Department Commander of the Alabama Military Order of the Purple Heart.
The Interim Director of the Tuscaloosa VA Medical Center, Dr. Maisha Moore reminded vets and their families about the services available to them.
Memorial Day is important to those veterans who served in combat and lost buddies that they will always remember and will always honor. As one Vietnam vet offered, "It is something I hope we always do."
Memorial Day is about more that backyard barbeques, road trips and time on the water. This day is a time to remember the men and women who sacrificed their future for ours. It began at Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts at the beginning of our nation, took place in Maryland's Fort McHenry where Francis Scott Key penned the poem that became our national anthem, it was commemorated at the spot where Abraham Lincoln delivered the poinient "Getteysburg Address", it sparked the poem "Flander's Field" which established red poppies as the symbol of rememberance at the World War I battle of Yepes, Beligium, it is plain to see today looking down on the wreakage of the Battleship Arizona at Pearl Harbor at the start of U.S. involvement in WWII.
Valor and sacrifice were every day occurances in Korea, Vietnam, on our own shores at 9-11 and to this day in the Middle East.
There is one commonality to each battlefield, whether at home or on foreighn soil - nearby there is a plot of land with long rows of white headstones listing the names of those Americans who fell there. Sacrifice is not what they wanted to do but it was a result of the belief expoused by the West Point creed "Duty, Honor, Country".
This is not a day to argue the merits of any war or conflict, it is a day to remember those who never came home. It is also a day to rededicate ourselves to continue the democracy and freedoms for which they fought and died.
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