Never Forget

N is for Never Forget

I am up to the letter N for the A to Z Challenge and I have chosen N is for Never Forget.   This can have different meanings for people, some may never forget something they learned or a special thing they did while others may never forget people in their lives.  For others they will never forget the certain dates and years.  But for one person, Never Forget has a very special meaning.

Over fifty years ago a boy who just turned 17 was sitting in the back of a duce’ and a half at Fort Dix, New Jersey with his 4 squad leaders and other soldiers waiting to be driven to the Air Force base next to Fort Dix for deployment to a country he and most of the soldiers never heard of and he hoped no one would ever have to hear of a place like that again. But as usual it was hurry up and wait and three hours later a captain called his name and rank and told him to get his 4 squad leaders and meet over there.
Two hours later the captain told all of them the President of the United States, John F. Kennedy, had been assassinated, murdered by a large communist country and deployment might change. They later heard more details of the murder. After a long cold night in Fort Dix the original orders were given to go over there to help the French and try to make soldiers out of the locals. Most of the soldiers were whisked away to the air base for the flight and very, very few ever came home.  From 1963 through 1965, this young man saw many soldiers pay the ultimate sacrifice for their country.   I am proud to say that I married this young man in 1967.  He will never forget those that he went to Vietnam with but never came home to their families.

My hubby is very proud of the license plate on his Harley, letting everyone know that he will Never Forget.  We also always ride with the American Flag and the POW Flag.

In the United States, we have two special holidays, one is Memorial Day, when we remember the brave people who died while serving in our country’s armed forces. The holiday is observed every year on the last Monday of May.  Many people say, “Happy Memorial Day” but there is nothing happy about this day.

The other special holiday is Veterans Day which is observed every year on November 11.  This holiday honors the military veterans who served in the United States Armed Forces.

Some people get the two holidays confused but Memorial Day is to memorialize and remember the brave soldiers who fought and died for our freedom while Veterans Day honors all the military veterans who are serving or have served in the Armed Forces.

In our town, we have services at the local cemetery on both these holidays and hubby and I are there to remember and honor our Veterans.   The above photos are some I took at these services.  We will NEVER FORGET the sacrifices of so many.

I’m enjoying the A to Z April Blog Challenge, writing about the letter N today.  The challenge is to write a blog starting with the first letter of the alphabet on day one and continue through the month every day except Sunday.  For the previous letter, I wrote about M is for Mountains , a place hubby and I love to sneak away to.  If you are participating in this challenge, please share your blog link in comments, I’d love to read yours!

Another great blog challenge is the Ultimate Blog Challenge .  The challenge is to write a blog a day for the month of April and so far I’ve completed it every day.