“We should do this
every day of the year,
and not just one.” 
Beth Pennington

Today is a national holiday, a day off from school or work, and traditionally a day for picnics, barbecues, baseball games, and parades. Memorial Day is the unofficial start to the summer season. While all this may be accurate, none of it reflects the true purpose of the day.

Throughout the history of the United States, countless men and women have died while serving in our nation’s armed forces. It is their sacrifice, the ultimate sacrifice, which has given us the gift of the freedom we enjoy in our country. It is this selflessness that we acknowledge with gratitude each year on Memorial Day. 

Today, I would like to share ten quotes about what it is we acknowledge on this day.

• Franklin D. Roosevelt: “Those who have long enjoyed such privileges as we enjoy forget in time that men have died to win them.”

• Winston Churchill: “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”

• G. K. Chesterton: “Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die.”

• Harry S. Truman: “Our debt to the heroic men and valiant women in the service of our country can never be repaid. They have earned our undying gratitude. America will never forget their sacrifices.”

• John F. Kennedy: “As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words but to live by them.”

• Sgt. Major Bill Paxton: “May we never forget our fallen comrades. Freedom isn’t free.”

• Tamra Bolton: “This is the day we pay homage to all those who didn’t come home. This is not Veterans Day, it’s not a celebration. It is a day of solemn contemplation over the cost of freedom.”

• Barack Obama: “Our nation owes a debt to its fallen heroes that we can never fully repay.”

• Lee Greenwood: “And I’m proud to be an American, where at least I know I’m free. And I won’t forget the men who died, who gave that right to me.”

• Jennifer M Granholm: “Ceremonies are important, but our gratitude has to be more than visits to the troops and once-a-year Memorial Day ceremonies. We honor the dead best by treating the living well.”