By Cami Beiter ~~~~~ As I sit thinking about Memorial Day and its meaning, I continue to think about it’s perception on the younger generation. If we don’t emphasize and stress the importance of the sacrifices our service members have made (or making), how will they come to appreciate the luxury of their freedom?
Reminding them to thank a soldier or thinking about grandpa and his war time duty, isn’t enough. To them, it’s like telling them to clean their room. If they aren’t truly vested with a clear understanding, they won’t appreciate the message.
What they need to understand is sacrifice, something we typically think nothing of on any given day. But talk to a veteran or a family affected by war and you will find a story.
During WWII, my grandfather was a U.S. Army Paratrooper serving in Europe and member of the Office Of Strategic Services (O.S.S). For nearly four years, he had virtually no written communication with my grandmother. She would frequently receive a typed letter from a war office in Washington D.C., saying he was alive but whereabouts classified.
My father missed my brother’s first birthday while on his first tour in Vietnam. Read more... Teaching Kids That Sacrifice Is The Real Meaning of Memorial Day
By Cami Beiter ~~~~~ As I sit thinking about Memorial Day and its meaning, I continue to think about it’s perception on the younger generation. If we don’t emphasize and stress the importance of the sacrifices our service members have made (or making), how will they come to appreciate the luxury of their freedom?
Reminding them to thank a soldier or thinking about grandpa and his war time duty, isn’t enough. To them, it’s like telling them to clean their room. If they aren’t truly vested with a clear understanding, they won’t appreciate the message.
What they need to understand is sacrifice, something we typically think nothing of on any given day. But talk to a veteran or a family affected by war and you will find a story.
During WWII, my grandfather was a U.S. Army Paratrooper serving in Europe and member of the Office Of Strategic Services (O.S.S). For nearly four years, he had virtually no written communication with my grandmother. She would frequently receive a typed letter from a war office in Washington D.C., saying he was alive but whereabouts classified.
My father missed my brother’s first birthday while on his first tour in Vietnam. Read more... 
By Wendy Pierman Mitzel ~~~~~~~ It's always surprising to me that Memorial Day is usually a big party instead of a solemn day of remembrance for the American soldiers who have died defending our freedom and freedoms of other peoples. I suppose we could say those men and women died for our right to slap a steak on the grill and we should show our appreciation by doing so. By all means, I say we should celebrate their lives with patriotism and the American way.
But since visiting other countries and learning about their customs it occurs to me that I, myself, should make more of an effort to really honor the day in the way it was intended.
"Originally known as Decoration Day, it originated in the years following the Civil War and became an official federal holiday in 1971," informs the History Channel. We closed shops and schools and met to decorate the graves of fallen soldiers. We didn't go out to buy mattresses at rock-bottom-prices.
So perhaps to assuage my own guilt over not taking the day seriously enough in the past, I am passing these bits of info along. And myself looking to teach my kids a bit of meaning behind the day off of school.
Here's a few things you