Random musings: Paying the ultimate price

Tuesday, November 14, 2017

Paying the ultimate price

There are three holidays in the US to honor our military...Veterans Day, which we just celebrated on Saturday, Memorial Day and Armed Forces Day which are both celebrated in May. Many people get them confused or lump them all together, but each holiday celebrates a specific subset of former or current service members. Armed Forces Day celebrates those who are currently serving, Veterans Day honors those who have previously served, while Memorial Day honors those who died while defending our country.

I'm proud to be a veteran and I'm grateful to all of the current and former members of our military. I'm also thankful to those businesses who support the military and veterans by offering discounts or freebies. Many businesses offer freebies on Veterans Day, such as free meals or free services. The only one that I took advantage of was a free haircut at SportClips. Thank you Matt Kneeland, the owner of the SportClips in Turlock, as well as several in Fresno and Clovis. I appreciate your support!

As you've probably guessed by the title of this blog, I'm going to be talking about those who have paid the ultimate price.This post was inspired by a friend who posted the following picture on Veterans Day:

The thing that struck me was that she lost her husband in the line of duty, but not only that he was within just a couple of weeks of retirement! Any loss of human life is tragic, but it seems to be even more tragic when someone has made it through a tour and was just days or weeks away from going home.

And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it's not the service member who pays the ultimate price but the loved ones who are left behind...the spouses, children, parents and all the other family and friends. The service member dies once but to those left behind, their loved one dies every day!

I'm going to re-post this at Memorial Day to honor those who have sacrificed and continue to sacrifice!