Honoring their sacrifice
There was something sadly right about the rain falling on the hillside of the Soldiers and Sailors Monument on Boston Common last week as Gold Star families walked with umbrellas among the 37,000 newly placed flags.
Later they would read the names of the loved ones they had lost since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. In total this nation has lost 6,886 men and women during Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation New Dawn. Those losses are still new and still raw on this Memorial Day 2017. Those names still evoke fresh memories — of the boy who once played for his high school football team, the neighbor who used to come to shovel the walk, the father who won’t be tending the grill on this day.
Yes, the casualties have dwindled in recent months, but for those who have to answer that knock at the door, the pain doesn’t go away. Many military families will say that they know their sons or daughters died doing something they valued — service to country. This is, after all, now an all-volunteer military. That such people walked among us and made such sacrifices is worth remembering on this day.
The garden of flags set up by volunteers for the Massachusetts Military Heroes Fund has in recent years provided an opportunity for all of us to take a moment to honor the sacrifice of those who have been killed in the line of duty. Each flag represents a son or daughter of Massachusetts killed in action from the Revolutionary War to the present.
The display serves throughout the weekend to provide one of those teaching moments for young people visiting with their parents and tourists taking a break from all those Memorial Day sales. Some may even make it to the top of the hill and read the inscription on the monument itself, which honors those lost during the Civil War: To the men of Boston Who died for their country On land and sea in the war Which kept the Union whole Destroyed slavery And maintained the Constitution The grateful city Has built this monument That their example may speak To coming generations It still does. And it always shall.