Bryan Strawser

Hat tip: James Lileks

I was involved with Scouting from a very early age. I was, at first, a Cub Scout, then a Webelos, and finally a Boy Scout.

The weekend before Memorial Day, in my first year as a Boy Scout, my troop and I spent the entire weekend placing flags on the graves of all of the veterans in two of the townships in Fountain County, Indiana - mostly around my hometown of Covington, Indiana. There were hundreds of them - including my paternal grandfather, James “Jay” Strawser, who served in the Second World War.

It was this experience, and many others like it growing up, that have instilled in me, a deep recognition of the sacrifice that our veterans have made.

This picture in today’s Boston Globe reminded me of those many days spent in the late spring sun, planting flags and remembering those that came before us:

Two weeks ago, while making my normal morning commute into Boston on MA Route 24 in a bit of rain, I managed to rear end a Ford F-150 Truck. The resulting crash, while at a very low speed, caused around $3000 in damage to my 1999 Toyota Prius and the Honda Civic Hybrid. Yup, you got it. Hybrid.

Gas prices here in Massachusetts are at $2.20 / gallon right now. A quick review of the financials on the Civic showed that I’d get a $1500 tax credit for buying the car and would save around $2100 annually on gas. that’s a pretty easy sell for me - even if the car was more expensive than I’ve been paying for cars over the last ten years.

The Prius was nowhere to be found - turns out that there’s only three for sale in the state right now - none close to me and not a one in the color or option combination that I’d be interested in.

My local Honda dealer in Raynham, Massachusetts, Silko Honda, called me a few hours after my initial inquiry via Honda’s Website and we made arrangements for me to meet with a salesperson. Once there, I don’t mess around. I hit my questions, went on a test drive, and bought the car.

I brought her home on Sunday:

So far I’ve driven 31 miles around town and averaged 44.6 miles per gallon. Not a bad start to my new life as a Honda Civic Hybrid owner.

Lex shares his Memorial Day Speech that his church asked him to give later today:

There are all kinds of heroes. There are firefighters and police officers, oncology nurses and schoolteachers, and they should all have their own day of recognition, but it is not this day. Today we remember that all that we have, our freedoms, our lives, this wonderful country which was brought forth in sacrifice and renewed in toil and trial we owe to such as who would, if we ask them, spend their lives in its defense. We must honor and remember them. And we must also those they fought beside – by whose side they breathed their last and for whom they fought and died, in surrogate for the countrymen that sent them there. We must never, in a fit of pique or passion, allow those words to escape our lips that, “I support our troops, but…”

There was no “but” in their faith with us. No escape clauses, no qualifications.

A somber occasion then, this Memorial Day, but also a sadly joyous one. For if we must regret the bitterness and pain of sacrifice, we must celebrate the fact that there are those who love us enough, and trust us enough, and what we stand for, that they would lay down their lives for us. We must earn this.

We must earn this by remembering them and honoring their sacrifice.

We must earn this by keeping faith with their brothers and sisters who return from the fight, the broken and the whole.

We must earn this by keeping in our hearts their loved ones, for whom no Memorial Day celebration will ever be required to invoke their memories or sufficient to fill the holes left in their lives.

We must earn this by continuing to build that more perfect union, so that it may more nearly represent the ideals of truth and freedom and justice for which they gave their lives.

We must earn this.

Yesterday, the 3rd United States Infantry, also known as the “Old Guard”, placed a Flag of the United States before more than 260,000 graves at Arlington National Cemetery.

Why?

Because these men and women gave their all - in some cases their lives - so that you and I could live here in peace and freedom.

Freedom is not free.