A couple years ago, an older gentleman who has a very thick accent (and who now considers me a friend) came in the feed store and said to have a nice "'Arbor Day". I thought he meant something about planting trees.
It slipped my mind that the date was 12/7.
He jumped my case, asking what they teach in schools nowadays . . . For a while after, he wouldn't so much as acknowledge my existence. But he and i do share a friendship now.

In my defense, i did know what "Harbor Day" was then. Not quite as much from school (though i had read a lot about it in my curriculum) as from a video game called Medal of Honor: Rising Sun. I had memorized the names of the ships that were sunk that day from that game. I knew how many people were killed, even down to the minute the first Zero came in because of that game. All that was covered in history books, but it wasn't as easy to remember as it was when a guy was shouting in my virtual ear about which ships went down and when.

But this isn't a pro-video game post--i scarcely play them anymore (historical learning can be a lot easier when put into things like that, though).

This is just to remind people that real people died that day for you and i. Not characters in a game, not actors in a movie, but real flesh-and-blood people.

They gave their lives in service to their country and to their families. They gave their lives for our freedom. Your fathers, your grandfathers, your great-grandfathers; these men chose to serve this country to the fullest extent possible, some paying the ultimate sacrifice.
Thank God for them, and thank God for those who have served since and are serving now.

"Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends."