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We have a holiday coming up, friends, as if you didn’t know.

Memorial Day. Always the last Monday in May, but you know that.

What will you be doing that day? For many, those in the work force who will have a day off, it makes for a much welcome three-day weekend.

For many, there will be enjoyable leisure time activities. Perhaps a day at the beach. Or time spent on our beautiful rivers. Maybe a backyard barbecue. Attendance at a sporting event. Working in the yard. Family gatherings. Just chilling out, emphasis on doing nothing at all. (I like that one.)

Memorial Day, as most of you know, is for remembering and honoring all those who lost their lives in all of our country’s wars.

What would you think, guess, would be the total number of those who made the ultimate sacrifice?

One point three million. That’s right, 1.3 million. It takes a while to really absorb the enormity of that obscene amount of lives lost.

Those souls never lived to come home and experience, enjoy, the beach, the rivers, the barbeque, a sporting event or family gatherings.

They would not be part of spouses, childrens, grandchildren yet to be born, parents, or grandparents lives.

We can only hope that the memories of them by their loved ones came to be at least a bit of solace.

For those who were left behind, through all the many years, my hope and prayer would be that the “pain of sorrow would be less than the joy of remembering.”

There will be observances, come Monday, all across this land we love. Most Americans, of course, won’t attend any of them, never have.

Most Americans, unfortunately, aren’t really very informed about their country’s history. Some are history illiterates, and don’t care that they are. That is simply the way of it.

So, my friends, let me wish for you a very pleasant Memorial Day. Indeed may your entire three-day respite be good.

Here’s also wishing you a thoughtful Memorial Day.

APROPS- “Hope lives when people remember.”

                                             -Simon Wiesenthal