Memorial Day 2011

Most of you out there back in the world are probably still thinking of Memorial Day as a 3 day weekend with barbecues and fun. A small percentage of you know what it really means, because you have lost family, friends, lovers or comrades who lost their lives while placing themselves "Between their loved home and the war's desolation". Few know that pain today, when viewed by either absolute numbers or as a percentage of the population. For the most part, I suppose that is all to the good, but it is one more factor that is causing the military and the general population to drift apart. This photo isn't from the front lines, but more from the rear echelon (as in REMF). Still, I think it stands as a vivid reminder of what Memorial Day means. Four flags fly at half mast this week, including our own. We lost eight USAF personnel from our command on one bad day. In honor of them, this year's Memorial Day poem will be "High Flight", by John Gillespie Magee, Jr.:

"High Flight"

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth

of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung

High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,

I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung

My eager craft through footless halls of air....

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue

I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace.

Where never lark, or even eagle flew —

And, while with silent lifting mind I have trod

The high untrespassed sanctity of space,

- Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.