EDITORIAL: Pause to remember

Posted 5/26/11

During the 2011 Legislature, our representatives and senators responded to efforts by our local legislators to designate U.S. 14-A between Powell and Cody as Wyoming Veterans Memorial Highway.

And Monday, along with the regular remembrance …

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EDITORIAL: Pause to remember

Posted

This year, Memorial Day comes amid a flurry of efforts to honor our veterans.

In recent months, Gov. Matt Mead has traveled to Park County specifically to meet veterans, particularly those who fought in Vietnam and Korea, and thank them for their service.

During the 2011 Legislature, our representatives and senators responded to efforts by our local legislators to designate U.S. 14-A between Powell and Cody as Wyoming Veterans Memorial Highway.

And Monday, along with the regular remembrance activities that mark Memorial Day, a special ceremony at the Wyoming Veterans Memorial Park in Cody will dedicate a monument in memory of Marine 1st Lt. Shane Childers, the first American serviceman to die in the Iraq war. The street passing the park, “Lt. Childers Street,” will be dedicated.

Some of us will dwell on the names of family members or friends who never came back, or came back scarred in body or spirit.

It also would be appropriate to take time to ponder the millions of soldiers and sailors whose names have long been forgotten, those who fought in the Civil War, the War of 1812, the Revolution, and other conflicts that shaped this nation.

In his book “Flyboys,” James Bradley recalled his visit to former President George H. W. Bush, who was the pilot of a plane shot down over the island of Chichi Jima in the Pacific during World War II. He managed to keep his plane in the air until it was over water to give his crew a chance to be rescued at sea rather than be captured by the enemy occupying the island, but only he survived.

Bush told Bradley that he still wonders if he did enough to save his crew mates.

“It still plagues me if I gave those guys enough time to get out,” Bush said.

Then he got up, walked to the window and stared out at the sky.

“I think about those guys all the time,” he said.

On Monday, join former President Bush and think about those guys, 1st Lt. Childers and all the others who have gone in harm’s way in our name.

It’s the very least we can do for them.

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