Happy Memorial Day!

For most, “Memorial Day” means “Fun Three-Day Weekend.” But the true meaning of Memorial Day goes much deeper. It is a somber day of REMEMBERANCE for the men and women who have died for our country.

For my family it means taking time out to remember those who fought for our freedom...and for those who died doing so. Every year - since I married into the Kahl Family - we go to Hanover, Illinois to partake in their Memorial Day ceremony.

Sometimes it saddens me that most people don't know proper patriotic etiquette! They don't remember out country's anthem: "The Star-Spangled Banner" either. I love hearing the local high school band playing Taps and the Star-Spangled Banner. The only thing missing was a bagpipe. I love bagpipe music...LOL.

After the ceremony we all join come together at the VFW hall and have a potluck luncheon.

Memorial Day in Hanover, Illinois
Has become a Kahl Family Tradition.

Jim's dad is a member of the VFW - a veteran of WWII.
Miles Kahl

The VFW and Lady's Auxiliary
Always do a great job!

Please consider joining us next year!

Annual Memorial Day Ceremony

This ceremony is a very moving tribute to the men and women who gave their lives in military service for the United States. One hundred and forty two years ago, President Abraham Lincoln gave a short speech at the dedication of the cemetery at Gettysburg. It was at the site of the great battle of the Civil War. President Lincoln said that day the world could never forget what those soldiers sacrificed for that time. If you go to Gettysburg today, you'll see reminders of those soldiers carved in massive stone monuments. Just like you'll see monuments to other soldiers and other wars if you have the time and inclination to travel around the country looking for them Our Memorial Day tribute is not carved in stone, nor cast in bronze, nor fashioned from steel and concrete. Our tribute is crafted in flesh and blood-–spoken in memory of the heros who gave their lives in defense of America. America is the greatest nation in the world. What makes America great are the freedoms we enjoy: Freedom of speech and religion; Freedom of individual citizens to bear arms; freedom from unreasonable searches; due process of law. These are natural rights given by God Almighty, and recorded in the Constitutions of the United States of America. Freedom never comes cheap. Every generation of Americans has seen its freedoms threatened. Every generation has responded, when necessary on the battlefield. We will have veterans at our Memorial Day ceremony who fought alongside the soldiers who gave their lives for our freedom in far flung places in the Pacific, Europe, Korea, Vietnam, Middle East, Afghanistan, and Iraq. We will remember also the soldiers who died before those of us alive today were born--in places like Bunker Hill, Gettysburg, Cuba and France. Some of our country's soldiers lie in new graves–our memories of them are fresh-–painful and raw. Our memories of the lives and faces of other soldiers who died long ago in far away places grow faint. Some are forgotten altogether except where their names are carved in marble or granite. Sometimes those names are carved in grand memorials; sometimes they're scratched in lonely tombstones in thousands of cemeteries in this country and abroad. Those of us who gather on Memorial Day will be few in number; but will be firm in resolve. We will never forget the legacy of freedom which we enjoy only because of those who paid for it with their lives. We will neither forget nor take for granted a single human life, laid down for our freedom We will never surrender the freedom which was defended by so many at such a cost!

By: davietv@davie.tv