...a day to Honor all of those who have made the ultimate sacrifice so that you and I can enjoy the God given rights of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. Enjoy the picnics and BBQ, I will, but please observe a moment of thanks for our fallen comrades in arms. On this special day, as I honor all who have made the ultimate sacrifice, I will be remembering a few in particular:

Lt. Col. Michael E. McLaughlin: My former X.O. in Alpha Battery 1/229th Field Artillery, PAARNG. The battery is laid in and awaiting your orders, Sir! KIA Iraq 05 Jan 2006.

Sgt. Brent W. Dunkleberger: KIA 12 Dec 2006 in Iraq. I promised to teach you how to fly fish. I am deeply saddened that we never got the chance. Now I fly fish in your honor. The rise has started and the bite is on.

Maj. Marie T. Rossi-Cayton: KIA Operation Desert Storm, 1991, Iraq. You could make a CH-47 Chinook dance. Now all of your skies are Severe Clear Weather. Let's go flying, Ma'am!

Sp4. Timbe Seats: My dearest comrade. You were my buddy. We lost your brother in Vietnam and you during the Cold War. They say that time heals all wounds. That may be true but the scars last throughout our entire lives. You taught me how to bring my pilots home, safe and sound. Can Do, Bro, Can Do!

To all of those through out the centuries that have laid down their lives for us and to their families, Thank You! Remembering these words helps me honor them all:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Thank you President Lincoln

All gave some, some gave all.