"What Memorial Day Means to Me"
From the point of view of
a Veterans Wife & Granddaughter of a WW2 Veteran
As the wife of an Iraq War Veteran, Memorial Day is bitter
sweet for me. I love spending the holiday with my family and friends. I love
seeing the flags raised, the red, white and blue coming out and people being
patriotic. I always feel a little sad for the spouses of the soliders who
didn’t come back from war, and I think about them too.
My husband was in the Reserves when I met him, so I knew
what I was getting into, and I loved it. Being a solider ran in his family. His
father served in Vietnam. His grandfathers had served in WW2 and Korea. It
seemed to be his destiny. He signed up at a time of peace, May 2001. He was in
his advanced training on September 11th. When we met in 2004, he had
not been deployed. That all changed in November of 2006. He got his deployment
orders.
He told me that he signed up because, even though we hadn’t
met yet, he said that he was serving in the hopes that one of his children
wouldn’t have to. Being a family of soldiers,
I can imagine at least one of our four boys will be in the military.
Being the spouse of a solider is a hard job. You’ve got to
hold the home fort down. You’ve got to be brave in public, even if you cry
every night. You have to be brave for your soldier, either on the phone or
Skype, keeping the news of home happy and worry free. They’ve got plenty to
worry about over there; they don’t need to worry about what’s going on at home.
You’ve got to manage your full time job and raise the children, again, all with
a smile and chin up, never knowing if you’ll hold your loved one again.
Memorial Day is about those who have given all for our
freedoms, not just about grilling, the beginning of summer and being able to
wear white. So when you’re spending time
with family and friends this weekend, take a moment to stop and think about the
soldiers, their wives and their families. Remember.
By
Sarah Bowman
Communications Director
