It's Memorial Day weekend, when our thoughts should turn to those who have served and sacrificed. In that spirit, here is the text of an e-mail I sent to friends and family last Memorial Day, just a few days before I started this blog.
__________________________________________________________________

In the spirit of the day I wanted to share with you all an experience from this Memorial Day weekend.

Saturday morning, for the sixth year out of the last seven, my sons (aged 18 and 14) and I put on our Scout uniforms (I am a former Scoutmaster and now serve with the volunteer Scouting commissioners in my area) and drove to L.A. National Cemetery to participate in the annual decoration of the veterans' graves there. We take a group from our LDS Stake every year. There is always a short patriotic program of remembrance. Then, several thousand Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, and Girl Scouts swarm over the grounds and plant flags on over 82,000 graves. At the end of the process the sight of all those acres of little American flags flapping in the breeze is breath-taking, thought-provoking, and downright beautiful.

This year, one aspect of the event stands out in my mind. It is how much my own two boys and other young men their age wanted to do this. They are normal teen-agers, and to participate in this event they have to get up at 6:00 a.m. on a holiday weekend morning. But the same two teen-agers who are sometimes so hard to rouse out of bed on a weekday got up last Saturday morning at 6:00 without any prodding. It is like that every year.

I am not the only parent who experiences this; others report the same phenomenon. Another young man in our LDS ward (who just finished his freshman year at college) heard about our plans and joined us. He is one of my former Scouts and a veteran of several past Memorial Day excursions to L.A. National.

When we got to the cemetery two other troops from our Stake joined us. We put flags on graves with names like Munemori (a Medal of Honor winner), Sadowski, Harvey, Cohen, and McCoy. There are Buffalo Soldiers buried at L.A. National (black freemen who fought in the West), as well as Tuskegee Airmen (black pilots in World War II).

After all the boys had planted flags at various graves, we held a brief ceremony at the grave of a Medal of Honor winner and remembered his heroism. (The Medal of Honor is the highest award for valor in action against an enemy force which can be bestowed upon an individual serving in the Armed Services of the United States.)

Why this eagerness to participate in such an event? I'm proud, of course, of my boys' commitment to this type of service and of their patriotism, but there is more to this story.