President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama will participate in a wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknowns and in a Memorial Day service at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.
Some honored fallen comrades from wars present and past by working behind the scenes so families and friends would see graves neatly trimmed and smartly dressed, CNN reported.
Staff Sgt. Bradley Falls, who served in Afghanistan, said he considered it an honor to come to Arlington National Cemetery to plant flags in the burial plots of soldiers past.
"It's especially an honor for us when you've been on the other side of it and now you can come here and you can bring honor to their final resting place," Falls told CNN. "We all know somebody buried here personally."
Civilians also commemorate U.S. soldiers killed in combat, including high school student Ricky Gilleland, 17, of Stafford, Va., who runs a Web site that acts as a virtual database for soldiers killed in the line of duty.
Gilleland said he was awed by the ages of the casualties of war when setting up and running Preserveandhonor.com.
"It's sad because I come here and look at the birth dates and death dates and I think, 'These are kids not much older than me,'" he told CNN.
Since its launch in October, Gilleland said, Preserveandhonor.com has received more than 1 million hits.
Read more: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2011/05/30/US-honors-its-war-dead/UPI-88011306761108/#ixzz1NqIe5LTc
No comments:
Post a Comment