Many of us have seen or heard the phrase, ‘all gave some, some gave all’ usually around Memorial Day weekend. The man who coined the phrase was Howard William Osterkamp who was a Korean war veteran and purple heart recipient. Memorial Day was first celebrated in 1868 just after the end of the civil war to honor fallen men and women who died while serving in the US military.

All over the world are graveyards with US fallen men and women who died to protect our freedom. Many young folks today do not quite realize how blessed we all are to live in America and to some, the holiday has just become a punch line. For those who served, and families of men and women who came home in a flag draped coffin, they will never forget.

I served in the Navy for five years but was never in harms way. It was peacetime. Yes, I served, but never in the way hundreds of thousands of our men and women served while continually in harms way. I am not even qualified to pay honor to those lost lives.

To give you some perspectives, 214,938 service members died in combat during the civil war. 53,402 died in combat in WWI. 291,557 died in combat in WWII. 33,739 died in the Korean war and 47,424 died in Vietnam. Over the last 100 years there have been many many smaller conflicts where US service members died but these numbers will you give some perspective of the sacrifice many made that allows people like me to post a blog while sitting in my office in complete safety.

As you go into this weekend, maybe pause and remember those who paid the price and who ‘gave it all’ so we could have the opportunity to celebrate Memorial Day. KT