Monday, May 28, 2012

Memorial Day

 
Iwo Jima Monument, Washington, DC 

My father was a WWII veteran.  He enlisted while still attending high school.  He reported to the Great Lakes Naval Training Center in Michigan immediately upon graduation.  He shipped out of San Diego and served in the Pacific on a navy war ship.  His ship was under fire and he saw combat.  When his ship was hit with artillery, fellow shipmates fell around him.  In the mid fifties the Navy honored him with a miniature Iwo Jima statue because his ship was close to that action.

Along with our nation, Trials and Tribulations remembers our veterans who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our country.  Lest we forget, there are still 80,000 troops in Afgahnistan. (Reported on ABC's Good Morning America, this morning.) Our prayers are with them and with all the families who are honoring the loss of their loved one today.

There are literally hundreds and hundreds of veteran memorials across the US.  Here are just a few of them.

The U.S. Special Operations Command Memorial,
MacDill Air Force Base, FL

Bloomer Veterans Memorial, Bloomer, WI


 New Mexico Veterans Memorial Park, Albuquerque, NM 


Alaska Veterans Memorial, Denali State Park, AK


Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Washington, DC


Veterans Memorial, Grottoes, VA


Veterans Memorial Park, Winona, MN


Tommy Tucker Veterans Memorial, Friendship Park, Madras, OR


All Veterans Memorial, Bismarck, ND


Veterans Memorial Park, Wichita, KS

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you so much for this tribute. I am from Kansas but had never seen the monument in Wichita. Today's Kansas City Star's editorial has an extremely touching account of what should rightly be marked as the first Memorial Day observation, 147 years ago:

.http://www.kansascity.com/2012/05/27/3627399/the-stars-editorial-a-memorial.html

Sprocket said...

Anon @ 3:11 PM

You're welcome. I was trying to find veteran memorials from around the US where the image was in a public type domain. There are many, many memorials, but not all have web sites with images that are not copyrighted.

Anonymous said...

Betsy...I too am the daughter of a WWII veteran. My Dad was a B17 Pilot and bombed Germany during the war. Thanks for this tribute. My Dad never wanted to talk about WWII. The things he must have seen and experienced!
Signed...BJ, the SV Ins Agent
PS...Great Lakes Naval Training Center is north of Chicago, Illinois, not in Michigan (unless there was a second one). I grew up in Chicago.

Sprocket said...

Anon @ 4:41 PM

Thank you so much for the correction! I had to check with a few relatives to see if they remember my father going to a different location than the one I mentioned, and confirmed that he did go to the one I mentioned.

I believe the confusion was that the training center is on LAKE Michigan, and not IN Michigan.