Published May 2008 — Download PDF of the original newspaper column
Byrd's-Eye View By U.S. Senator Robert C. Byrd MEMORIAL DAY, 2008 May 26 is Memorial Day, the day we set aside each year to remember and honor those men and women who gave their lives in service to our Nation. All across the United States, families will be visiting the grave sites of their loved ones. Among rows of tombstones, adorned with small American flags, they will lay wreathes and pay their respects to those who served our country with honor and distinction in our Nation's wars. This year, like all Memorial Days since September 11, 2001, has very special meaning as troops are engaged in hostilities in Afghanistan and Iraq. They are again showing that freedom does not come cheap. It is too often paid for not only in dollars but in the lives of America's best. Writing about the thousands of soldiers who lost their lives during the battle at Antietam, Civil War historian Bruce Catton explained that those men did not die for a few feet of a cornfield or a rocky hill. They died so that this country might be permitted to go on, and that it might be permitted to fulfill the great hope of our Founding Fathers. So may it be said of all those courageous men and women who gave their lives in our Nation's wars. They served and they sacrificed to defend our country, to protect our freedom and our liberties. As President Abraham Lincoln said of those soldiers who fell in the Battle of Gettysburg, they "gave their lives that this Nation might live." It is my hope that on Memorial Day, all Americans will take time to remember those who have fought and died to preserve our great Nation. The personal suffering and sacrifice endured by our fallen soldiers and their families for the sake of our country must not go without a measure of recognition by each of us on this most solemn of days. These were real people, not just statistics in a history book or names chiseled on stone. These were young men and women with sisters, brothers, mothers, fathers, hopes, dreams, aspirations and fears like the rest of us. But on this Memorial Day, we must also remember to pray for those American service men and women who are now in harm's way on the other side of the globe, in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in other foreign lands. They are doing their duty for the Nation they cherish, and the families they love. May 14, 2008