I know most of us, myself included, are enjoying an extra day off today.  It is Memorial Day, and the timing of it coincides with the release of students from school, so it also kind of becomes the start of Summer, and there will be picnics and parties and all of that fun stuff.  But, before we all head out to our parks and backyards to fire up that grill, let’s take a moment to remember what today is really all about.  Bless you boys, and gals.  We remember you.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

-Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae, 1915

Featured Image: The train schedule, at The Union Pacific Foundation Train Station, National WWII Museum, New Orleans.  We visit the WWII Museum every year on Memorial Day weekend.  From the WWII Museum site: this is a five-minute re-creation of the tearful farewells and joyous, but bittersweet, returns of the 16 million men and women who went off to war.