In memory

There are so many things that make me happy today:

- backyard fires
- roasting marshmallows
- funny dancing
- irish wrist watches
- country music
- colbalt blue shorts
- boy shirts
- eating watermelon and getting it all over your face
- sunglasses

all of these things would not be possible had it not been for those who fight for our nation.

Land of the free.
Home of the brave.

I can have achievable dreams because of those who fight for my freedom.

Today my family and I went to Stones River Battlefield. The cemetery contained plaques with parts of the poem "Bivouac of the Dead" by Theodore O'Hara, a soldier who had fought on that field and watched his friends and enemies fall (this is not the whole poem, just the parts that were in the cemetery)

THE MUFFLED drum's sad roll has beat
The soldier's last tattoo;
No more on Life's parade shall meet
That brave and fallen few.
On Fame's eternal camping-ground	5
Their silent tents are spread,
And Glory guards, with solemn round,
The bivouac of the dead.
No rumor of the foe's advance
Now swells upon the wind;	10
No troubled thought at midnight haunts
Of loved ones left behind;
No vision of the morrow's strife
The warrior's dream alarms;
No braying horn nor screaming fife	15
At dawn shall call to arms.
The neighing troop, the flashing blade,	25
The bugle's stirring blast,
The charge, the dreadful cannonade,
The din and shout, are past;
Nor war's wild note nor glory's peal
Shall thrill with fierce delight	30
Those breasts that nevermore may feel
The rapture of the fight.
Your own proud land's heroic soil
Shall be your fitter grave:	70
She claims from war his richest spoil—
The ashes of her brave.
Rest on, embalmed and sainted dead!
Dear as the blood ye gave;
No impious footstep here shall tread
The herbage of your grave;
Nor shall your glory be forgot	85
While Fame her record keeps,
Or Honor points the hallowed spot
Where Valor proudly sleeps.

Things like this really make me think. The poem is beautiful and haunting. I will never know what it feels like to be in that situation, and I know I can never understand it. I think the best way we can show our gratitude is to live with our gratitude each day, not just on Memorial Day, or Independence Day, knowing that our lives are the way they are because of selfless people who sometimes sacrifice everything for us, strangers. And then we need to try to never forget.