Memorial Day

Twice a year I look forward to our trip to the WP cemetery to place flags at the headstones. The cub scouts, boy scouts, brownies, and girl scouts do this before Memorial Day and Veterans Day each year. This is the 4th year that we have participated.
I'm not sure what, exactly, it is that I love about this but it probably has to do with seeing 50 or more 5 to 18 year olds walking through the cemetery carrying arm loads of flags.
I don't usually just wander the cemetery but I love how this service gives me the opportunity to do just that . I don't read every headstone I pass, but I read some.

I find myself thinking about the people who are buried here, how they lived, and how they died. There are WP graduates, veterans of wars and conflicts, spouses, and children... sometimes very young children. The last two times we have placed flags, we have been assigned to a newer area of the cemetery. As we place flags, it has been sobering to read these headstones. They mark the graves of cadets who've graduated during the time that we've lived here, and then went off to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan and were killed.
This Memorial Day I remember family members who have left this life...some of them old and some of them very young. And I also think of those who have sacrificed their lives in service for our country.