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Reflections of the fallen

Date
May 28, 2012
Author
Kate's Club
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Reflections of the fallen
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A veteran posing for a picture
A veteran

Few holidays impact me as much as Memorial Day. As one of my friends who is a veteran said so well, “Memorial Day isn’t when we remember what we won.  It’s when we remember what we lost.”

For the last several days, I’ve been remembering the fallen. I started by recalling the first time the meaning of this holiday really hit home.  It was after I had enlisted in the Air National Guard and I was driving with my father. It was very late, well after midnight, and as we were about to exit he asked me to drive a little farther. Minutes later, we pulled up to a Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

We got out of the car and sat down on a bench a few meters from the V sculpture engraved with names. My father had served in Vietnam and I was born while he was overseas, but we had never talked about what happened over there. We sat together in silence for the better part of an hour and he eventually uttered a single statement: “Darkness. That’s all I remember.” He then went up to the memorial and placed his hand over several names. It was an incredibly powerful moment.

Three decades after my father’s service in Vietnam, I deployed three times with the U.S. Army. After those experiences, I now know what it feels like to run my hand over names etched in stone. The sense of loss and grief is paralyzing.

As we honor the fallen on Memorial Day, please join me in praying for all of the families who lost loved ones to war. And let us also pray for the safe return of our women and men who are fighting to keep us safe around the globe.

God Bless America, and those who protect her.

Very respectfully yours,

Georgia State Rep. Scott Holcomb

Would you like to share your story? Please get in touch with Kate's Club! KC has free grief support with grief resources, grief counseling resources, grief training, and volunteer work in Atlanta and surrounding places in Georgia. Kate's Club is a growing nonprofit in Atlanta with grief specialists for kids and young adults going through bereavement. Our goal is to make a world where it is okay to grieve.

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