Over the years, I've known a bunch of people who were currently in uniform, or had been in the past. Family, friends, people who(in CAP) taught/trained my son.
This is the first Memorial Day since son joined up. He's currently in a quite nice place; in a few months he'll be in a somewhat less nice place. He's had good training, in Basic from people freshly back from the immediate war zone* and since with people who've been there; a bunch of people in his unit have been there before. They're prepping hard for it. There's a certain amount of concern, of course, but knowing that does make this a bit less difficult to deal with.
What'll I do today? The flag is up out front, at least unless('until' by the look of the clouds) it starts raining again. I'm not going shopping. There's things I'll take care of in/around the house, and when I take a break I'll check around on the web on the State Of Things, and I'll be thinking about people I know and don't know who're out on the sharp end. I'm uncertain about God, in that while I think He's out there, sometimes I'm not too fond of Him, but I'll probably do a bit of praying(can't hurt).
This is a marvelous country we live in. Because a bunch of people of all social classes were willing to put their lives and families on the line to create it; because a lot of people have fought for it in many ways since, many losing everything. Someone once asked how, if I liked this country so much, I could be so distrustful of the government and I said it's because I love this country and I don't want the muck-sucking politicians and their buttmonkeys to screw it up because I wasn't watching. There are a bunch of people in ACUs all over the world as well as here, some actively fighting the bad guys and the others training for the time, and it's to keep this country going without the bad guys killing and torturing in the streets here.
From those in graves in many places to those old ones who fought in the past to those currently out there, we owe them. A lot.
Update: Kevin has a list of places where you can donate to help the troops and the families of the fallen.
* I call Iraq and Afghanistan the 'immediate' zone; I think we're in the 'warm to cool' zone, depending on what part of the country(as in "What's nearby they'd like to hit?") you're in. As to training, in Basic every member of the training cadre had been in one or the other immediate zone within the past six months; the Army has been taking the top few percent of noncoms coming back and rotating them to training duty.
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