Category: Holidays

Holidays

Memorial Day – Flanders Field

In 1915, Canadian artilleryman John McCrae penned poem about loss and remembering. I share it with you today as a way to honor all the men and women who never returned from battle.       Flanders Field John McCrae, May 1915 In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That […]

From the Blogs, Holidays

Good Friday Link Around [UPDATED]

It’s Holy Week in the Christian calendar, so this week’s links are all about Easter. As a trivia, history, and liturgy “geek,” I think this stuff is interesting so I’m bound in my geekness to share it with you! The days of Holy Week have their own names, beginning with Spy/Holy Wednesday, then Holy Thursday […]

Holidays

Here I Am, Send Me

There’s a statue of Airman on the Academic Circle at Maxwell AFB, Alabama with a simple inscription: Here I am, send me. That’s what we thank veterans for on Veteran’s Day. We remember their service because when their country called, asking “Whom should I send? Who will go for us?”,  young men and women stepped […]

Holidays

Remembering 11 September 2001

On this Patriot Day, it’s hard to believe it’s been 14 years. I remember my thoughts and feelings so vividly that day, and I remember passing over the still burning wreckage in Manhattan in July 2002 as I went to join my comrades at war. Let’s pause and remember the lives lost, lives spared, and […]

Holidays, Quotes by Famous Leaders, Veterans

In Memoriem

“It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation. War is hell.” – William Tecumseh Sherman, General, US Army My deepest thanks to the men women who’ve given their “last full measure of devotion” and to […]

Holidays, Veterans

Pearl Harbor Day 73rd Anniversary

We’re privileged to live near hallowed ground: the battleground where 2,000 Americans lost their lives on December 7, 1941 during the attack on the military bases on Oahu. It’s humbling to live and work in a place where the history is never locked away in a book or museum, but part of our everyday lives. […]

From the Blogs, Holidays

Fun Facts About American Thanksgiving

Via Stars And Stripes Thanksgiving is among America’s most popular holidays, a time for food, family and football in celebrations that date back to the earliest days of the nation. In fact, the history of Thanksgiving is more complicated than the national myths about “Turkey Day.” Here are some facts about the holiday that you […]

Holidays

”But Young Men Think It Is… ”

There’s a famous poem by World War I poet-soldier A.E. Housman entitled Here Dead We Lie that speaks to me about the cost of war, and the courage of the men and women who fight them. When ever I’ve visited a military cemetery or seen a soldier’s grave at a civilian cemetery, I often think […]