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Memorial Day a chance to remember troops' sacrifices

May-19-2006 » Filed Under: 172nd SBCT

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By MICHELLE CUTHRELL, Daily News-Miner

Over the years, Memorial Day weekend has meant many things to me.

As a kid, it marked the absolute coolest event in the world of children's outdoor activities--the unveiling of the community pool. And then when I got a little bit older, it signaled the opening of the sweetest place in 16-year-old dating land--the drive-in movie theater. In college, it denoted the day I busted out my favorite white platform shoes, and in my young professional life, it designated the day I tore the cover off the grill.

But in all those years, Memorial Day never really meant any kind of memorializing for me. That is, until now.

It's amazing how your perspective changes when you marry a military man and send him off to war. All of a sudden, all those old veterans you always thought took things like the flag and the national anthem too seriously make so much sense, and you, too, start finding yourself frustrated by the people who think Memorial Day is just another day away from the office. Rather than marking it on your calendar as a day to plan fun cookouts and parties, you start marking it in your mind as a day to really remember the sacrifice of so many in this nation throughout the years--the kinds of sacrifices that your husband and his friends make even now.

I'm pretty sure my 16-year-old self would have rolled her eyes at my 23-year-old self had she seen me e-mailing Joseph Fields, coordinator of the Alaska Moving Wall project, who is helping to bring the famous Moving Wall to honor Vietnam veterans to Fairbanks from May 24-30 this year.

She probably would have sighed, had she heard that I was skipping out on the pool and the parties to visit this wall and help this gracious Vietnam veteran find volunteers to help read the names of those who died not only in Vietnam, but also in Afghanistan and Iraq.


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