Stay safe while remembering the fallen and all who serve and served America during the COVID19 pandemic.

Oregon Veterans Memorials Directory…  Click on highlighted text for more…

This is a red granite memorial tablet mounted behind on a gray granite slab with an electric flame on a pedestal in front of the Lincoln County Courthouse.

Flame of Freedom…Newport, Oregon  Click highlighted text for more…

Several  years ago while walking around our City Park in Depoe Bay, Oregon, I stopped to look closely at our town’s VFW Veterans Memorial.  When I looked closer, the name Ronald Allen Slane, Sp5, US Army 1967-68 was engraved on the plaque as an example to honor veterans of all wars.  Ron was a medic who died during an ambush in Vietnam while trying to save another soldier…he didn’t even have a weapon to defend himself.  “Ron Slane, Lincoln City, Oregon, volunteered to go to war as an army medic.  He was a conscientious objector, but believed he had a duty to serve in some way.”

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For me, and millions of kids born before and after WWII, Memorial Day is very personal.  Now, in retirement, I devote much of my spare time honoring veterans of all wars, and military families who serve too…  I also honor my fellow veterans who served during the Vietnam War, and all the wars since then.  We can never thank our veterans and their families enough for serving America while protecting the freedoms we enjoy each and every day of our lives.  This is a debt that can never be paid back…

And during this terrible COVID19 pandemic, we remember and honor those who left us while serving on the front lines even though the risk of infection was was far greater than anything experienced before. These are the front line heroes of the COVID19 generation and the families who serve too…

So, on this Memorial Day when so many of us avoid crowds, check out the veterans memorials on-line and give thanks to all those who have served, who serve now, and will serve in the future, including first responders who keep us safe on the home front.  Thank the families and loved ones who serve too, and who become the care givers to our heroes who return home with moral and physical injuries that often require a lifetime of healing.