Thoughts on Memorial Day

As a child Memorial Day meant traveling to Preston cemetery, placing flowers on graves. In later years,  plaques that read, “Faith in every footstep”  were placed on the headstones of some of these people who had walked a crossed the plains to settle the West. On the other side of the family, They were coming West, also. There are stories told of the great, great  Aunt that  ran in the Oklahoma Land Run. It seems that every generation pushed West, starting with founders of the places like Boston and Salem and the Appalachians. As I look back on my ancestors I can see that they were always pushing Westward.

As a child while my Father was in school, we spent a little while in NJ. I reveled in the beauty of the hardwoods in Fall colors, in winter I had the opportunity to ice skate on the famous Erie Canal. Although I reveled in the beauty of the Northeast, I missed the Rocky Mountains of my Childhood.   The purple mountains majesty of the song “America The  Beautiful."                                                                           

Now Memorial Day means the solemn ring of a Bugle.  Nathan takes his bugle out to the porch and plays for the whole valley to hear. It rings clear and solemn. On the Military Post every evening they play “Taps” at the end of the day, and at funerals, at the end of a life.

I never wanted my daughter-in-laws to go through what I went through. Military wives band together. They need each other’s support while their husbands are gone, in dangerous and unknown circumstances. But now I have two sons who have entered the military.

Being a military wife was very hard. Not only is having them gone so often is hard, there are times when your husband is deployed that you can’t know where he is. You know he is in danger and you know he might not come back. There is always that possibility.

Military wards are anxiously engaged. As life becomes  tenuous the gospel and the peace that it brings becomes more important.

Zech, when he was little, had a friend whose dad was doing mine sweeps. (Probably in Cosovo) He couldn’t sleep at night because of the fear that his Dad wouldn’t come home.

In the book of Mormon we learn that war can harden people’s hearts. Mormon, after years of war, was told by the Lord, “Cry unto this people,  Repent , and come unto me, and be baptized, and build up again my church, and ye shall be spared.” Mormon says that he cried “unto them but it was in vain. They did not realize that it was the Lord that had spared them, and granted them a chance for repentance. AND BEHOLD THEY DID HARDEN THEIR HEARTS against the Lord.” (Mormon 3:2)

With that solemn ring of the Bugle playing taps, Memorial Day becomes the day we honor those who died for our freedom.

The words of the Battle Hymn of the Republic come to mind.” As he died to make men holy, Let us live to make man free.”  The true freedom that we seek comes through living the principles of the truth and righteousness. The founding Fathers understood this principle.  The Church could not have been restored had our country not been founded upon principles of righteousness, and truth, and the people who were willing to die for these principles.

The beginning statement from the book The 5000 year Leap says:

 “Like the framers themselves, many Americans in the early years of the Republic truly regarded the Constitution as a miracle. Not only did they praise the competence, wisdom and motivations of those who served in the federal convention of 1787, but they declared that the formation and adoption of our new system of federal government represented a political achievement unprecedented in human history. They looked upon it, moreover, as an event that was actually “influenced, guided and governed by the hand of God. Thus it is not hard to understand why our Founding Fathers believed that the Constitution was destined to bless all mankind—and that it was ‘incumbent on their successors’ to preserve and defend our national charter of liberty.”

A little side note. I just learned that in our county only approx. 25% of the people vote. That means that if you do vote you get a bigger say in what happens in the county than just one. Each person who votes speaks for at least 4 people, himself and 3 people who did not vote.