by Jim Sheppard » Mon May 31, 2010 9:52 am
For most Memorial days past...I had little time to partake of any remembrance activity...being in an industry that was busy on all holidays...I almost always had to work on Memorial Day. There were a few years where I managed to break free and meet with Steve Escot and Walt Landry at the New Jersey Vietnam Veteran's Memorial. Those few meetings led to Steve nominating me for your Historian at the Kansas City Reunion in 1999....and the rest is History! (I know...really bad pun! ~grin~). Today I will have the chance to take part in my home town's Memorial Day Ceremony at the town's monuments to WWI, WWII, Korea and Vietnam.
For me...as well as all of you who served with us in Vietnam....we do not need a public holiday to remember our friends killed in action...as we remember them every day. I look forward to seeing some of you at the Change of Command Ceremony in about two weeks...others in Gettysburg in September and many more at our Reunion in the spring of 2011 at Fort Benning.