“Uncommon valor was a common virtue.”
Admiral Chester Nimitz on the Marines at Iwo Jima
There are certain days in America that should always make us stand up tall.
Memorial Day is one of them.
Not because of a mattress sales at Tempur-Pedic or backyard beers at Uncle Ray’s or because today is the unofficial start of summer.
Because somewhere beneath all the noise and sunshine are rows and rows of white stones, folded flags and gold star families that never got their sons and daughters back.
The quote on today’s Chalkboard was about Iwo Jima. Young Americans climbing into hell on a black sand island because somebody had to do it.
Farm boys and factory workers. Kids from ethnic Chicago neighborhoods and small rural Indiana towns. Catholic boys carrying rosaries. Jews who had blood in the fight. Poor whites from coal country who could barely read. Black kids fighting for a country that didn’t always fight for them. Immigrants trying to become Americans by shedding blood for America.
Most of them were barely old enough to shave, but they were brave enough to fight for this country.
Yet when the moment came, courage became ordinary.
That is the meaning of the quote I chalked down this morning.
Not that valor was rare, but that it became expected.
Today, before the bratwursts hit the grill and before the first pitch at Comiskey, take a minute and remember somebody who never got the chance to grow old.
Somebody whose mother received a knock at the door. Somebody who left behind a baseball glove, a high school sweetheart, a future that barely began.
Freedom always costs somebody something.
Enjoy the cookout.
Laugh with your family.
Sit in the sunshine….
… But remember why you can.
