Holiday Specialties: The Calling to a Veteran’s Highest Honor

Memorial Day is a Day we reflect on all our fallen Veterans. They served our country so let us take this day to serve and honor them.

To get into the mind of a Veteran most of them will tell you the honor of being a Veteran means remembering the fallen heroes and the many they served with in the Armed Forces. To a Veteran there is no higher honor than to remember the fallen first and the living last. After being a member of the Sons of the American Legion for over eleven years I can help them with their causes but I cannot share in the brotherhood they feel through their fraternity. You see our American Legion Post gathers Veterans from all over a tri county area to help put flags and Monuments over the graves of anyone who is a Veteran and who has served our country honorably. Then in each cemetery where they prepare the graves they have a short ceremony, have a twenty one round salute, and play taps then move on to the next grave site.

This process is a ritual and a dedication in honoring the Veteran where they feel they could have done more even though they did what they promised they would do. This heart felt ritual begins just after dawn the Saturday before Memorial Day and ends in the early evening. Memorial Day takes presence over any Veteran’s holiday to these dedicated veterans including Veteran’s Day where after a short ceremony where they get together and honor each other. However, on Memorial Day these dedicated Veterans want to let the world know that these Veterans who served and who died in battle or naturally in life will never be forgotten as Americans of the highest honor. These, the men and women who served with courage in wartime and peacetime putting their life on the line for the call to freedom.

After a day of rest the Memorial Day celebration begins our faithful Bateman Gallagher Post 668 leading the Radnor Memorial Day Parade though the village of Wayne Pennsylvania to the Radnor War Memorial where all of Radnor Township and friends pay tribute to all past veterans but mostly to the Veterans who have fallen in the line of duty. Our Legionnaires and Auxiliary members stand proudly knowing they are honoring all Veterans who have fallen or past.

The village of Wayne was formerly known as the village of Louella until the late 1800s when the village was reborn. This decision was made by the town members in the honor of General (Mad) Anthony Wayne who single handedly led the charge sparking a complete turnaround in the Battle of Brandywine and one of the turning points of the American Revolution against British Army. Mad Anthony’s statue of him on his horse is perched on a hillside in Valley Forge National Historical Park where he looks like he is proudly gazing over the village named after him.

General Anthony Wayne is only one of many great symbols of a Veteran and a Patriot we cherish in the history of our Nation. As a Legionnaire or a member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars these fraternal organizations know and are part of a brotherhood in which only they can understand the dedication and the bravery. Make no mistake about it, on Memorial Day Veterans celebrate the lives of all Veteran from the American Revolution through the Civil War to today. And, as Veterans they were here to serve and defend our freedoms as citizens of the United States of America.

This Memorial Day please remember and honor all Veterans for this is not just any three day holiday weekend for it is a sacred one to all Veterans. And as any Veteran will tell you when you see a member of the Armed Forces say a special thank you to them for their service to us.

It’s the highest honor you can give them!