05/27/2024
On this somber Sunday morning before Memorial Day, I wandered through various stores near our neighborhood, trying to erase past memories that kept resurfacing.
This Memorial Day, we honor the brave souls who sacrificed everything in service to our country. To those who never returned and their families enduring absence without closure, your sacrifices are etched in our hearts. We remember and thank you profoundly. We share your pain.
One interviewer asked what I did when I (with a small group classmates walking to school) first saw two village doctors' bodies dismembered and hung on a makeshift pole on our way to school before my teenage years. I told him we had no choice but to run home as fast as possible. Those doctors, from the city visiting their patients in the village, were victims of the Vietnam war, which created angst and sorrow for all of us, the villagers and their families. Like them, my cousin's husband and sister-in-law's father, river boat merchants in contentious areas, never returned home. Their families never knew the reasons and could only pray and hope for their return, in vain.
For those who bore arms following orders from leaders in safe compounds, the consequences were grave. My neighbors and cousin, drafted to fight, came home with lifelong injuries. Other friends fought for the opposite side with the same tragic results - some never returning to enjoy the causes they fought for. These memories linger because they were family, friends, and daily visitors to our neighborhood store.
As perfect as America aims to be, sometimes we fought the wrong wars and created controversy. But America has always fought or aided allies against aggression, unprovoked attacks, and prevent inhuman oppression, resulting in innocent lives lost. Whether fighting wars worth fighting or meaningless ones, our men and women in uniform strive to protect our freedom and liberty. I have and know of friends who risked their lives in the US armed forces, and children of other friends gave their all in recent overseas wars.
While reminiscing about the wars I lived through, I hope for world peace one day, with aggressors realizing annexing other countries or unprovoked attacks are crimes with grave consequences.
I'm forever grateful to be alive after enduring one of the most unforgiving wars, crossing the most unfriendly ocean by small boat, staying in the most horrific refugee camp, and now living in this utopian land. I am the lucky survivor. When I finished my store tours seeing consumer support for our customers to patronize our products, my mind eased a bit.
For whatever reasons our brave ones fought, they all deserve the highest honor from us. We remember and thank them profoundly. We share their families' pain.
HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY!
