ProgressOhio

This Memorial Day holiday will find many of us surrounded by loved ones at parades, picnics and long vacation weekends.  As we travel to these celebrations and welcome the long-awaited start to summer, let us honor first and foremost those for whom this holiday was meant to cherish -- the brave men and women who have gone before us for the sake of freedom.
 
I join my fellow citizens in remembering the valiant bravery of the people who have given their lives so that we may live in freedom.  Let us also honor the thousands of men and women who served alongside these patriots who survived the perils of war and those who still wait in support from home.  And finally, lest we forget, we must do all we can to recognize their stewardship of freedom by keeping our commitments to them as veterans.
 
This Memorial Day, we stand united.  It is not the day to express dismay about ill-begotten wars and conflicts with which we agree or disagree.  Nor is this the time to make anti-war or pro-war speeches.  There is nothing political about it at all.  It is a day we draw upon the strength we have as Americans -- our unity.  A day to recall the poignant words of writer Peter Collier, to remember "those who had given all their tomorrows, as was said of the men who stormed the beaches of Normandy, for our todays."
 
 --David Robinson, Candidate, Ohio's U.S. 12th Congressional District  www.robinson2008.com