Remembrance

Memorial Day:

On the front page of today's Greensboro News and Record were photographs of the young men and women from this area who have died in Afghanistan and Iraq, and I came face to face with Jake Carroll.  Jake was a sophomore when I taught him at Trinity High School, not the most graceful stage of life for kids.  The name itself means "wise fool," a description that fits most of us at 15.  We know it all; older people are stupid; we'll live forever.

Most of us live long enough to gain some of the wisdom we thought we had, long enough to know what we don't know.  But Jake did not.  His 20-year-old face looked out at me this morning, and I was struck again by how very sad war is.

And yet I'm also grateful for the service of those who choose to defend our country from enemies.  I think of my father and my father-in-law, both of whom served during World War II.  Had they not defended us and others, we would be living in a very different world today.

So it is with mixed feelings that I say thank you to those who have served and that I remember in prayer those who did not come back - and those to whom they did not return.