On this #MemorialDayWeekend, I remember this moment I captured then-Lt. Gen. John Kelly taking a solo walk away from the traveling SecDef entourage through North Africa American Cemetery, in Tunis, 2012. Kelly’s son Robert was killed in Afghanistan less than two years earlier.
I remember those inscribed on the walls at the American cemetery in Manila (visited twice), especially Capt. Ryan McCown, whose bones we saw at his F-4U Corsair crash site in Papua New Guinea.
I think of all those US troops who gave the ultimate sacrifice so that we could live on to make this a better nation, somehow. Better than twitter. Better than the partisans and politicians gleefully dividing us like it’s a sick game. Better than you, and better than me.
I’ve been to American cemeteries on five continents: here, Europe, Africa, Asia Australia (does PNG count?) Never thought that’d be something I’d say.
Suggested reading, this amazing true parallel tale of a WWII pilot lost in the Pacific and the struggling Iraq War pilot sent to find him, by @BryanDBender.
https://www.amazon.com/You-Are-Not-Forgotten-Twenty-First-Century/dp/0307946460">https://www.amazon.com/You-Are-N... #MemorialDayWeekend
https://www.amazon.com/You-Are-Not-Forgotten-Twenty-First-Century/dp/0307946460">https://www.amazon.com/You-Are-N... #MemorialDayWeekend