…and everything you will ever have, including all your physical possessions and all your loves and everything else, depends on what these men and women did.

This morning, while the 60^th Anniversary of the March on Washington was getting under way to celebrate, re-enact and remind us of how far we have yet to go to realize Martin Luther King Jr’s dream of a more just society, a smaller but no less dramatic event was unfolding at the World War II Memorial. An Honor Flight of veterans from World War II, Korea, and Vietnam wars delivered a bus load of survivors, many in wheelchairs and accompanied by their “guardians,” for a recognition of their service to this country. My wife and I were there with a small group of other Americans to welcome and respect the sacrifices these people made on our behalf. We have attended special flights for Gold Star families at National Airport when, before the pandemic, her hula troupe performed for families who have lost loved ones in military service.

An Honor Guard was on hand today to present the colors. A bugler playing Taps. The National Anthem was sung by Ms. District of Columbia. The speaker reminded us to look at the Wall of Stars. Each of the 4,048 gold stars represents 100 Americans who gave their lives in service during World War II. You can do the math. And that’s only the dead, not the almost 700,000 wounded. The mind boggles at such devastation. And those were just the Americans. In one war.

After a brief ceremony, the veterans were able to visit the Korean War Memorial and the Vietnam Memorial Wall. The pictures speak for themselves, so I won’t go on at length about what these people did. I will add only that if you are in the Washington area at any time you should visit the National Museum of the United States Army at Fort Belvoir that we visited recently. The website has the details, https://www.thenmusa.org, but does not do the place justice. The scale of it is overwhelming, a solemn and imposing reminder of how many wars this country has fought since the Revolution that led to our independence from Britain and the freedom and prosperity that have followed.