With the weekend almost upon us I found this on a Memorial Day tribute website and thought it was worth sharing:

--Adorning the graves of the soldiers with flags or flowers.

--Visiting cemeteries and memorials.

--Furling the American Flag at half-mast until noon.

--Furling the 'POW/MIA Flag'.

--Keep silence for a minute at 3 p.m., 'National Moment of Remembrance' and listen to Taps being played.

--Take a pledge to aid the disabled veterans, widows, widowers and orphans of the dead and keep it.

--You may support the efforts to restore the traditional day of observance of Memorial Day back to May 30th.

--Offering thanks to the veterans and appreciating the ultimate sacrifices of the soldiers to the bereaved families personally may help too.

FREEDOM IS NOT FREE

- Kelly Strong

I watched the flag pass by one day.

It fluttered in the breeze.

A young Marine saluted it,

and then he stood at ease.

I looked at him in uniform

So young, so tall, so proud,

He'd stand out in any crowd.

I thought how many men like him

Had fallen through the years.

How many died on foreign soil?

How many mothers' tears?

How many pilots' planes shot down?

How many died at sea?

How many foxholes were soldiers' graves?

No, freedom isn't free.

I heard the sound of TAPS one night,

When everything was still

I listened to the bugler play

And felt a sudden chill.

I wondered just how many times

That TAPS had meant "Amen,"

When a flag had draped a coffin

Of a brother or a friend.

I thought of all the children,

Of the mothers and the wives,

Of fathers, sons and husbands

With interrupted lives.

I thought about a graveyard

At the bottom of the sea

Of unmarked graves in Arlington.

No, freedom isn't free.

I keep it simple, I just say a prayer of thanks. My dad fought in Italy, the men and women who fought in WWII,lived through a depression and brought America back to prosperity were truly the Greatest Generation.

ps I pray for all Veterans, no matter when they served.

Wife and I go to Amelia Vets Cemetery with some of the guys from my American Legion Post  and put American flags on the graves of our fallen heroes.

The cemetery is beautiful with all those flags.  

I do nothing special other than pause and remember.  It's enough for me.  I remember.