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William Magear “Boss” Tweed was born on April 3, 1823, at 1 Cherry Street on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. The son of a third-generation Scottish chair-maker, he grew up on Cherry Street. His grandfather had emigrated from a town near the River Tweed, close to Edinburgh. While his religious affiliation wasn’t widely known during his life, The New York Times later reported, quoting a family friend, that his parents were Quakers and members of the old Rose Street Meeting House. At 11, he left school to learn his father’s trade, later apprenticing with a saddler. He also studied bookkeeping and worked as a brushmaker for a company he invested in before joining the family business in 1852. On September 29, 1844, he married Mary Jane C Skaden and lived with her family on Madison Street for two years.
Tweed joined the Odd Fellows, the Masons, and volunteered with Engine Number 12. In 1848, invited by state assemblyman John J Reilly, he and friends formed the Americus Fire Company Number 6, or “Big Six,” adopting a snarling red Bengal tiger from a French lithograph as their emblem…a symbol tied to Tweed and Tammany Hall for years. Volunteer fire companies were fiercely 
competitive, often linked to street gangs and ethnic communities, sometimes fighting each other instead of fires. Known for wielding an ax in brawls, Tweed was elected “Big Six” foreman until chief engineer Alfred Carlson pushed him out. Fire companies also served as political recruiting grounds, bringing Tweed to the attention of Democratic leaders in the Seventh Ward, who backed him for Alderman in 1850 at age 26. He lost to Whig candidate Morgan Morgans but won the seat the following year, marking his first political role. He soon aligned with the “Forty Thieves,” a notoriously corrupt group of city aldermen and assistant aldermen. After beginning his association with “Forth Thieves,” Tweed started down the road to corruption. He rose to prominence in Tammany Hall, New York City’s powerful Democratic political machine, in the late 1850s. By the mid-1860s, he had taken over as its leader and created the “Tweed Ring,” a group that openly bought votes, promoted judicial corruption, siphoned millions from city contracts, and held a tight grip on New York City politics.
In 1871, the Tweed Ring hit its height of corruption with the remodeling of the City Court House, a shameless embezzlement of public funds exposed by The New York Times. Tweed and his cronies hoped the backlash would fade, but thanks to relentless critics like Harper’s Weekly cartoonist Thomas Nast, who waged a fierce campaign against him, nearly every Tammany Hall member was ousted in the November elections that year. All members of the Tweed Ring were eventually tried and sent to prison. Boss Tweed served time for forgery, larceny, and other charges, but in 1875 he escaped and fled to Cuba and then Spain. On November 23, 1876, Spanish police arrested him, reportedly recognizing him from a well-known Nash cartoon. After being extradited to the United States, he was sent back to prison, where he died in 1878.
A good con man can fool even the savviest of people in the right circumstances. Cousins, Philip Arnold and John Slack were “prospectors” who were pretty good at conning people. The Diamond Hoax of 1872, also known as The Great Diamond Hoax, was a scam where the two prospectors duped prominent businessmen in San Francisco and New York City into buying a fake American diamond deposit. This scheme sparked a short-lived diamond rush across the western United States, including Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado.
In 1871, Arnold and Slack traveled through Navajo territory with James Cooper on their way to San Francisco, collecting chrome diopsides, pyrope garnets, and ilmenites. They mixed these with some flawed industrial-grade diamonds that Cooper already had and showed them to a local jeweler and bankers, securing funding for an expedition. The men were joined by Asbury Harpending, and they bought flawed South African stones from Leopold Keller jewelers in London. Back in San Francisco, they displayed their “findings,” and Harpending took some to Charles Lewis Tiffany for appraisal. Valued at $150,000, this appraisal led to the creation of the Golconda Mining Company. As the ruse continued, they hired mining consultant Henry Janin to inspect the mine, and Arnold later acquired more rough diamonds, low-grade rubies, emeralds, and other gems in London and Paris, mixing them with more Navajo spinels, sapphires, and pyrope garnets. These were planted near Diamond Peak, Colorado, on a sandstone outcrop containing itacolumite. In June 1872, they led Janin to the site, where he declared the “mine” to be “wonderfully rich.” Janin’s endorsement of the mine attracted investors like George B McClellan, Nathan 
Rothschild, Tiffany, and twenty others, and they bribed Spoons Butler to pass legislation granting access to federal land under the General Mining Act of 1872.
Later, the investors persuaded the cousins to sell their stake for $660,000 (about $17.3 million today) and went on to form the San Francisco and New York Mining and Commercial Company. New York attorney Samuel Latham Mitchill Barlow was brought in as their legal representative, who then suggested adding United States Congressman Benjamin F Butler to the legal team. Barlow established a New York corporation called the Golconda Mining Company with a capital stock of $10,000,000. Butler received one thousand shares for amending the General Mining Act of 1872 to include the phrase “valuable mineral deposits,” which enabled legal mining claims in the diamond fields. On August 31, 1872, United States Attorney General George H Williams clarified that “valuable mineral deposits” covered diamonds, and the company was ready to begin mining activity.
Soon everything began to unravel. Geologist Clarence King who had led a survey team that recently completed a Geological Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel had a chance meeting with Janin on a train. King and his team were alarmed at the reports of such a prominent diamond field which their survey had not noted. I’m sure they wondered what they had miss, or maybe they suspected foul play. King sent geologist Samuel Franklin Emmons and cartographer A D Wilson ahead to investigate, with King joining them soon after. Upon locating the site, they quickly concluded that it had been “salted.” As a geologist, King knew that the various stones found in the mine were formed under different conditions and would never be found together in a single deposit. He immediately notified the duped investors.
Meanwhile, the cousins knew it was time to “get out of Dodge” before they were found out. Arnold fled to 
Kentucky, taking his proceeds from the scheme and bought a two-story brick house in his native Elizabethtown, as well as some five hundred acres of nearby farmland…all of which he had deeded in the name of his wife Mary. In 1873, Arnold ventured into the banking business by purchasing a defunct financial institution in Elizabethtown. In 1878, a feud with another local banker led to a shootout, leaving him with a serious shotgun wound to the shoulder. He died six months later from pneumonia at the age of 49. Slack chose a quieter life, and in 1896, he died in White Oaks, New Mexico, where he had become a coffin maker. Neither of the men ever faced charges for the scam. Law enforcement was different back then.
Veteran’s Day is a time to reflect on sacrifice, honor, duty, dedication, war, and peace, but for me it’s also a day filled with thoughts of my dad and how much I miss him. I know my sisters feel the same, as does the rest of our family. For anyone who’s lost a loved one who was a veteran, this day brings their memory close. I think of my Grandpa Byer, my uncles Ted Byer, Cliff Byer, Larry Byer, and Jim Wolfe, and my cousin Larry Wolfe…all gone now, but thankfully not lost in war. I remember those in World War II who couldn’t serve in combat but contributed at home in the shipyards and Rosie the Riveters, like my Aunt Ruth Wolfe, Aunt 
Laura Fredrick, and Uncle Bill Spencer…who was kept from service by a hernia and flat feet. And I think of so many others…too many to name…who have fought and returned, and those still serving to protect our nation and prevent terrorism around the world.
Their sacrifice is beyond measure, a debt we can never repay. Every day in service, they work without knowing if they’ll return to their loved ones or if this will be the day a bullet, rocket, or bomb claims them. They face fear as if it’s their constant companion, and yet they know it’s no friend at all. They push past that fear and do their job because it’s necessary—because they are necessary…without them, our nation stands unprotected. Most of us sleep peacefully at night, confident in what tomorrow will bring, because we live in a country where freedom is for everyone. But we must remember, it doesn’t come free. Over the years, we’ve lost countless young lives to war…young people who were our hope for the future, full of promise, with plans and dreams…all gone now.
War is a terrible thing, and none of us truly wish to take part in it. Yet, evil exists and works tirelessly to bring chaos to the world. If we stand by and do nothing, countless innocent lives will be lost. That’s why God created 
soldiers…people of honor and dedication, with a strong sense of duty and love for others. They are individuals of courage and bravery, able to push back the fear surrounding them. God knew they would have to be heroes, and that’s exactly what every veteran is, was, and always will be. Today, we honor those who have sacrificed so much to keep us free. Thank you for your service, and God bless every one of you.
As I reflect on Resurrection Day 2025, I feel so thankful that we have been forgiven. The Bible states in Romans 8:1, “[There is] therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit.” Christ took all our brokenness, all our sins, all our shame, and gave is freedom, forgiveness, and the knowledge that our Father loves us, no matter what mistakes we have made, and even what evil we have done. No matter how evil man can be, and we all know that we have the ability to be very evil, when we receive Jesus as our Lord and Savior, and understand the power of His sacrifice on the cross at Calvary, we are made new, and we are forgiven.
Before we were saved, we were lost in our sin and condemned to Hell. There was no hope because the wages of sin is death, and God could not compromise that. If he had made even one exception our world would have imploded. The world was created on the goodness, holiness, and perfectness of God. To say it was ok for one person to sin and no payment to be made for atonement, would have completely compromised the very power of God that was holding our world together. So, God had to come up with a plan that could fix broken man 
without compromising His goodness and perfectness. He needed a man who had not sinned to pay for all those who did, even though He was innocent of any wrongdoing.
It would take a long time to find a man on the earth who was willing to partner with God to bring this to pass, because God was now outside of His creation looking in. God had given man the authority over this earth, knowing that it was very possible, and even probable that man would sin and mess the whole thing up. Why would God do that? It was because God didn’t want a world full of robots. He wanted a family…sons, daughters, grandkids. Truly, God is a dad, and as a dad, He knows that His kids aren’t perfect. Nevertheless, He loves each and every one of us…so much so, that He was willing to ask His son, Jesus to accept that horrific task of giving up His Godly powers and His Heavenly home to come to Earth, live a sinless life, and then be sacrificed and horribly punished anyway. Jesus was innocent, but God had to punish Him as if he had committed every single sin ever committed. The wages of sin is death, and payment had to be made, but for all of us to go free, the payment had to be made by a sinless man. There was no such sinless man, except Jesus. He was fully God and fully man, and the horrific sacrifice he made was enough. The cross was enough to redeem all mankind, and all 
we had to do was to receive Jesus as our Lord and Savior. Jesus was enough, the price was paid, and we are finally free to have eternal life again. Lord, thank you for the atonement for my sins that you have freely given. Now I am a new creation. I have been redeemed from the curse of the law. I am no longer condemned, but an heir to the throne. I receive your salvation Lord, in Jesus’ name. Amen!!
The Sixties Scoop, often referred to simply as The Scoop, was a time when policies in Canada allowed child welfare authorities to remove Indigenous children from their families and communities to place them in foster homes. These children were then adopted by white families. Although it is called the Sixties Scoop, this practice started in the mid-to-late 1950s and continued until the 1980s. There was no given indication that these children were neglected or mistreated, just that they were Indigenous, and supposedly, therefore would be better off in the care of white families. During those years, an estimated 20,000 Indigenous children were removed from their families and placed predominantly with white middle-class families.
The program’s policies were not uniform, with each province implementing distinct foster programs and adoption policies. Saskatchewan was unique in having the targeted Indigenous transracial adoption program known as the Adopt Indian Métis (AIM) Program. The term “Sixties Scoop” was first used in the early 1980s by social workers from the British Columbia Department of Social Welfare to describe the practice of child apprehension by their department. This term made its initial appearance in print in a 1983 report by the Canadian Council on Social Development, entitled “Native Children and the Child Welfare System.” Researcher Patrick Johnston cited the term’s origin and utilized it in his report. This term is akin to “Baby Scoop Era,” denoting the time from the late 1950s to the 1980s when many children were removed from unmarried mothers for adoption. These mothers were given no choice in the matter.
The government policies responsible for the Sixties Scoop were abandoned in the mid-1980s following resolutions passed by Ontario chiefs and severe condemnation from a Manitoba judicial inquiry. The inquiry, led by Associate Chief Judge Edwin C. Kimelman, culminated in the release of “No Quiet Place / Review Committee on Indian and Métis Adoptions and Placements,” commonly referred to as the “Kimelman Report.” Numerous lawsuits have been initiated in Canada by individuals who were part of the Sixties Scoop, including class-action suits in five provinces, such as the one initiated in British Columbia in 2011. Chief Marcia Brown Martel of the Beaverhouse First Nation was the lead plaintiff in the Ontario class-action suit filed in 2009. On February 14, 2017, Justice Edward Belobaba of the Ontario Superior Court found the government responsible for damages caused by the Sixties Scoop. Subsequently, on October 6, 2017, an $800-million settlement was disclosed for the Martel case. Currently, Métis and non-status First Nations individuals are not included in the settlement, prompting the National Indigenous Survivors of Child Welfare Network…an organization led by survivors of the Sixties Scoop in Ottawa…to call for the rejection of the settlement unless it encompasses all Indigenous individuals who were removed from their homes and placed into forced adoption.
The Sixties Scoop began during a period when Indigenous families were already grappling with the consequences of the Canadian Indian residential school system. This network of boarding schools for Indigenous peoples adversely affected their social, economic, and living conditions. The residential school system remained operational until the closure of the last school in 1996. Established by the federal government and managed by various churches, the system’s goal was to assimilate Aboriginal children by teaching them Euro-Canadian and Christian values. It enforced policies that prohibited the children from speaking their native languages, communicating with their families, or practicing their cultural traditions. Survivors of residential schools have spoken out about the physical, spiritual, sexual, and psychological abuse they endured from the staff. The enduring cultural impact on First Nations, Métis, and Inuit families and communities is both widespread and profound.
The Sixties Scoop involved the forced removal of children from their Indigenous lands and communities, often without the consent or knowledge of their families or tribes. Siblings were frequently separated and sent to different areas to prevent any communication with their relatives. These children were denied knowledge of their true nationality, history, or family ties. If a child sought to learn about their cultural identity, they required consent from their biological parents. However, due to the government’s efforts to sever ties between the children and their biological families, access to their birth records was impossible. Consequently, while the children might have suspected their cultural heritage, they had no means to verify it with concrete evidence.
The Canadian government began the process of closing the mandatory residential school system in the 1950s and 1960s, believing that Aboriginal children would receive a superior education within the public school system. A summary states: “This transition to provincial services led to a 1951 [Indian Act] amendment that enabled the province to provide services to Aboriginal people where none existed federally. Child protection was one of these areas. In 1951, twenty-nine Aboriginal children were in provincial care in British Columbia; by 1964, that number was 1,466. Aboriginal children, who had comprised only 1 percent of all children in care, came to make up just over 34 percent.”
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of Canada, established as part of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, was tasked with recording the experiences of Indigenous children in residential schools. Its mission was to disseminate the truths of survivors, their families, communities, and all those impacted, to the Canadian populace. The TRC’s final report, released in 2015, details these findings: “By the end of the 1970s, the transfer of children from residential schools was nearly complete in Southern Canada, and the impact of the Sixties Scoop was in evidence across the country.” First Nations have persistently resisted such policies through various means, including legal challenges (Natural Parents v. Superintendent of Child Welfare, 1976, 60 D.L.R. 3rd 148 S.C.C) and the establishment of their own policies, like the Spallumcheen Indian Band’s by-law to manage its child welfare program, achieving varying levels of success.
In response to the loss of their children and the subsequent cultural genocide, First Nations communities took 
action by repatriating children from failed adoptions and striving to reclaim authority over their children’s welfare practices. This movement began in 1973 with the Blackfoot (Siksika) child welfare agreement in Alberta. Currently, there are approximately 125 First Nations Child and Family Service Agencies in Canada, operating under a variety of agreements that grant them authority from provincial governments to offer services, with funding provided by the federal government.
As mining work started up in the United States, the need for housing in the area of the mines started up too. This need brought about the “company town” as a place where all or most of the stores and housing in the town are owned by the same company. Of course, this meant that quite often, all or most of the wages paid to workers, came back to the company in purchases, and as we all know stores and such always have a markup so that they make a profit. Still, they did meet a need, and there was often nowhere else to go. Company towns were often planned with a number of amenities such as stores, houses of worship, schools, markets, and recreation facilities.
The initial motive of building the “company towns” was to improve living conditions for workers. Nevertheless, many have been regarded as controlling and often exploitative. Others were not planned, such as Summit Hill, Pennsylvania, United States, one of the oldest, which began as a Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company mining camp and mine site nine miles from the nearest outside road. Just being that far from anything else around, was prohibitive to those who felt like they were the victims of gouging. Today, many of those “company towns” are ghost towns…lost to a bygone era.
One such town, the town of Kempton, West Virginia was located just a few feet inside the West Virginia border. This strategic location allowed the company to operate using scrip rather than cash. To me that seems like a move to a cashless system that further held the workers there, because the scrip was only accepted at the company businesses, thereby eliminating outside competition. As with any monopoly, this created price 
gouging. To make matters worse, if an employee needed a “big ticket” item, such as such as washing machines, radios, and refrigerators, they could get them and make payments. This put many miners in debt, and they were required to pay off the debt before they could move away. The town of Kempton was “founded in 1913 by the Davis Coal and Coke Company, a strip of land 3/4 of a mile long and several hundred feet wide was cleared for the construction of company houses, four to six rooms each with a front yard and a garden in the back. In 1915, J Weimer became the first schoolteacher at $40 a month with 53 pupils. The company store was located on the West Virginia side along with the Opera House that contained the lunchroom, bowling alley, pool table, dancing floor, auditorium, and the post office.” These towns were in reality, “privatized” towns run by a government that was neither elected nor fair, they were simply the ones in control, and if people wanted a job they dealt with the rules.
Cut out of the Appalachian wilderness, the town of Kempton flourished and became a vibrant community rich in culture and familial spirit. Then, when the mine closed in April of 1950, it just as quickly faded into oblivion. Nevertheless, the former residents tried to keep their connections alive. They held a reunion in 1952 to share their memories and to recall a strong sense of home. Unfortunately, what were once good intention, faded as life got busy and people moved around. Finally, the forest began to reclaim many of the houses as weeds took over and neglect allowed for decay. These days, the fruit trees and annual flowers that were planted long ago 
by people who loved the place “still bloom to greet the Spring” and a few of the broken-down buildings still dot the landscape, if one in incline to look around. Newer homes have been built, that are privately owned, and mixed in are a few of the old remnants of times past. With mine reclamation laws in place now, groups have come in and performed archeological digs to recover old work items from the past and restore the site to historical status.
The Circus Maximus, which is Latin for largest circus is an ancient Roman chariot-racing stadium and mass entertainment venue in Rome, Italy. It is located in the valley between the Aventine and Palatine hills, and it was the first and largest stadium in ancient Rome and its later Empire. It measured 2,037 feet in length and 387 feet in width and could accommodate over 150,000 spectators. In its fully developed form, it became the model for circuses throughout the Roman Empire. The site is now a public park. In its beginning, it might have been planned for good, clean-cut entertainment, but in at least part of its history, it was used for much more sinister things. It was during the Roman Empire, when the empire decided that anyone who was not a Roman citizen was basically unimportant.
As it has been throughout history, the Roman Empire was notorious for its persecution of Christian and Jewish people. During those years, the Circus Maximus was used for the execution of Christian and Jewish prisoners, as part of the Roman Triumph, along with chariot racing, of course. As we all know, the Roman Empire worshiped a number of gods, which put them in direct conflict with the one true God, and thereby, put them at odds with the Christians and Jews. During those years, Christians were persecuted and prosecuted, throughout the Roman Empire.
Pagan practices such as making sacrifices to the deified emperors or other gods were abhorrent to Christians as their beliefs prohibited idolatry. When they would not comply with the pagan practices, they were prosecuted by the state and other members of civic society and severely punished for “treason, various rumored crimes, illegal assembly, and for introducing an alien cult that led to Roman apostasy.” The first, localized Neronian persecution occurred under Emperor Nero (BC54-BC68) in Rome. A more general persecution occurred during the reign of Marcus Aurelius (BC161-BC180). After a lull, persecution resumed under Emperors Decius (BC249–BC251) and Trebonianus Gallus (BC251–BC253). The Decian persecution was particularly extensive. The persecution of Emperor Valerian (BC253–BC260) ceased with his notable capture by the Sasanian Empire’s Shapur I (BC240–BC270) at the Battle of Edessa during the Roman–Persian Wars. His successor, Gallienus 
(BC253–BC268), halted the persecutions. Most, if not all of these emperors were viciously wicked men, including Gallienus, who finally stopped this horrific practice. Nevertheless, he did stop it, so that is a good thing. There is a right and wrong way to put someone on trial, and most importantly, there should always be freedom of religion, but not all countries allow freedom of religion.
Recently, my sisters, Cheryl Masterson, Caryl Reed, Alena Stevens, Allyn Hadlock, and I started a book club. Before each meeting, we read a book, on our own time, and then come together to discuss the book we read. We chose the Presidents of the United States as our topics, and each time we progress to the next president. We began at the beginning, President George Washington. We went on to John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and next will be James Monroe. One takeaway from these books has been that while our founding fathers may have had their faults, and some more than others, each tried to do what they saw as the best thing for this nation. They also knew that more than anything, we needed freedom. We could not continue to live under British rule.
We had to be free of England, and so it was that Independence Day, also known as the Fourth of July, is now a federal holiday in the United States commemorating that freedom, and the Declaration of Independence, which 
was ratified by the Second Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, establishing the United States of America. The Declaration of Independence was largely written by Thomas Jefferson but was collectively the work of the Committee of Five, which also included John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston. The Founding Father delegates of the Second Continental Congress declared that “the Thirteen Colonies were no longer subject (and subordinate) to the monarch of Britain, King George III, and were now united, free, and independent states.” The Congress voted to approve independence by passing the Lee Resolution on July 2 and adopted the Declaration of Independence two days later, on July 4. We were a free nation, but that did not mean that Great Britain would willingly accept that. In fact, Great Britain did not accept US independence until 1783…a full seven years after it was first declared.
Like many “start-up” countries, the United States met with heavy opposition the minute it tried to get going. The “Mother Country” didn’t want to let go. Great Britain called the United States the “Colonies” long after we 
were actually a free nation. Even when they knew they had lost any control over the United States, they tried to get it back, and in the absence of getting their control back, they downplayed the importance of the United States. That was probably the most ridiculous part of it, because the United States became the most powerful nation in the world. While some might disagree, and while we have had our ups and downs, this nation will always stand. Today, we celebrate the nation that we love. The United States of America…the home of the free, because of the brave. Happy Independence Day to this great nation!! Let the celebration begin!!
My aunt, Virginia Beadle was the second daughter of my grandparents, Hattie and George Byer. Like her older sister, Evelyn Hushman, Aunt Virginia helped with their younger siblings. When you come from a family of nine children, there are always babies to care for. I don’t suppose the girls always loved taking care of their siblings. Younger siblings can be a trial to the older kids…especially as the older kids head into their teen years. Nevertheless, they did what was needed. Still, when Aunt Virginia found out that since her sister was the main babysitter, and she didn’t have to do housework after a late night of babysitting, Aunt Virginia, who hated housework, asked if the same rule would apply to her if she was working. When Grandma said it would, the deal was sealed. Aunt Virginia went out and got herself a job. She always had one after that, and true to her word, Grandma didn’t make her do housework. I don’t know how long that deal lasted, but for a teenager, who hated housework, it was a good deal.
One of the coolest events of Aunt Virginia’s life was the day happened when she was about 8 or 10 years old. 
She was playing outside with her siblings. Aunt Virginia decided to go exploring at the side of the house, between their house and Great Grandma Byer’s house. She looked at the little flower garden there and saw something shiny. When she picked it up, she saw that his was a man’s wedding ring. Great Grandpa was long dead, and her dad, Grandpa George Byer, had decided to forego a wedding ring so that he could give his bride, her mom and my grandma, Hattie Byer a wedding ring. Obviously, this was an exciting, and quite likely valuable, find.
Aunt Virginia took the ring to show her dad. Grandpa looked at it and told her it was a beautiful ring. He put it on his hand and looked at it. Then he took it off and gave it back to Aunt Virginia. She said, “Daddy, you should keep it.” He said he couldn’t, but she insisted, and that is how my grandfather got his wedding band from his daughter. Aunt Virginia was so pleased to be able to give her dad the wedding ring he had never had and would 
not be able to buy for himself, as there were too many other things that his paycheck was needed for. And Grandpa was so pleased that she wanted him to have such a beautiful ring. He wore the ring proudly for the rest of his life. And everyone in his family was very pleased that he had been blessed with the ring. Aunt Virginia was always a kind and loving person, and I can see how that ring made her day, as much as it did Grandpa’s. Today would have been Aunt Virginia’s 94th birthday. Happy birthday in Heaven, Aunt Virginia. We love and miss you very much!!
Memorial Day is a different kind of day, because it is not a holiday of celebration, but rather a day remembrance. We cannot celebrate this day, because it is about honoring those soldiers who went to war and didn’t make it back. It was the ultimate sacrifice. As the saying goes concerning soldiers, “all gave some, but some gave all!” When a soldier goes to war, they know. They are very aware that the possibility exists that they will not come back home. They know that their sacrifice might be the ultimate sacrifice. They want to make it home, but they know it may not be. Today is about those soldiers who did not make it home. 
I doubt if there are many families that can say that they have never lost a soldier in battle, but while I don’t specifically know of any in my family, I’m sure there are some back there a way. There have been many wars, and with each one examined, comes the increased chance of having a relative who dies at war. It doesn’t matter anyway, because Memorial Day is a day to honor those who gave all, whether they are related to us or not. Their sacrifice is what makes us free today. They fought for people they didn’t even know, gave up time with the family they loved, and died in a place they didn’t want to be. That is the epitome of bravery and courage.
Some of them, including my uncle, Jim Richards’ brother Dale Richards never left the place they died. Dale fought in Normandy, France, and that is where he is to this day. The people of France are so grateful for the soldiers who fought and died over there, that they keep the graves looking beautiful. It’s nice to know that there are people who continue to show their appreciation for those men who “gave all” for them. Their sacrifice should never be forgotten. Their families can certainly never forget. They have had to go forward with their lives without the love and support of the soldier that went to war and never came home. That soldier had 
potential. They could have been anything they wanted to be, but instead, they chose to give their life to ensure the freedom of other human beings. Today, we honor all of those men who “gave all” for us and so many others. We thank you for your service, and we honor your memory. God bless you all, from a grateful nation.
