Memorial Day peeve

Hang with me here. I like Memorial Day. It is a very appropriate time to honor those who have gone before us. And especially a good way to honor those in our armed services who paid the ultimate price--those who died on the field of battle.

My peeve is people and companies who turn Memorial Day into "Salute the Troops Day". Yes, I like the troops. Yes, I am thankful for the efforts our troops do to protect our country. But Memorial Day is not a troops honoring day.

I saw a post on Facebook from Air Choice One " In honor of Memorial Day, tag a veteran, and tell us how you appreciate their service, and we will give one lucky winner 2 round trip flights on our airline."

That's great, and it is nice a company rewards our veterans. But the people who should get the prize for Memorial Day, can't use it, because they are deceased. I think it is bad karma to do special things for live veterans on Memorial Day. Again, this is a day to honor those who have passed away, in particular, armed forces who died in service of their country.

I feel the same way about people who are posting pictures of their alive and kicking current and/or former military friends and family. If you want to post a picture of old Uncle Joe, in his uniform when he was in Korea, and then died in 1992, I've got no problem with that either. But today is not the day to post a picture of Cousin Jimmy, who is currently stationed in the Azores. Today. is. not. that. day.

There is a line there, and maybe I'm coming off as anti-military or anti-veteran, but that is not the case. My request is to reserve this day for those that have passed away, and use it to honor them.

Here's my guy to honor. I went looking for Vietnam War casualties. You can search by date. I decided to search for my birthday. Unfortunately, there were a lot of US servicemen killed on the day I was born. I'm gonna choose this guy, Gunny Willis Bowman, from Philadelphia. If you want to read about him, here ya go.