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Memorial Day Reflection

  • Published
  • By Lt. Col Carl Yost
  • 315th Airlift Wing
CHARLESTON S.C. --  It was morning and I was on duty at the emergency room of the deployed airfield joint hospital. Four trauma cases were being brought in as a result of a humvee rollover. I spoke with three of the soldiers who had non -life threatening injuries while the doctors and nurses were attending to the critically wounded driver on the gurney beside us. The gunner of the foursome told me how they were run off the road by an insurgent while they cautiously attempted to deal with the threat. The soldier driving died.

Later that night the Airfield held the "Fallen Comrade Ceremony" as the soldier's casket was carried by his unit's members to the C17 on the tarmac. As the bagpipes played and all along the flight line soldiers, airmen, sailors and Marines stood at attention, I stood beside a staff car with the three wounded soldiers. They watched in solemn emotion as their friend was placed in the plane. I noticed they were sitting in the exact same spots they had been earlier that morning in the humvee as they were heading out on patrol but this time the driver's seat was vacant.

As we observe the 2010 Memorial Day for our nation let us acknowledge the numerous vacant seats over the years of fellow service men and women who have given the ultimate sacrifice. In a culture which often glances over the numbers of KIAs as if reading sports scores or the weather report, we know there is a personal life behind each number. A personal life and a family where there is now a vacant place at the table.

This Memorial Day as we gather for meals or observances, let us set a vacant place or seat in our midst to honor the memory of those who have and will make the ultimate sacrifice for the sake of a free, just and peaceful way of life for family, nation and world. "No greater love is that one should give their life for another", you and me.