Memorial Day Weekend 2024

    Thinking about 1864 today. The second to last year of the War between the States, known as the War of Northern Aggression, or the U.S. Civil War. What to think of it this many years later?

    It was hard, it was necessary. The Southern States could not abide by the fact that the North was going to fight the lifestyle of slavery so entrenched in the states that would become Confederate. The war was inevitable, it seems, and the thousands of lives lost were sad and unfortunate consequences of the differences that men and boys would fight to their ends for. A United States or a divided republic. Well over half a million soldiers died.

    In Clarke County today we visited the Battle of Cool Springs, where 140 souls from both sides met their final fates. The oldest for the north was a 52-year-old, father of three. The oldest Rebel was a 48-year-old, father of six. The youngest victim was a 15-year-old, trying to retreat across the river. He drowned, and his body was never found.

    We as a family hoped that he simply disappeared and never came back. Lots of terrible things happened to a lot of people in that conflict. Wars are rarely easy or full of hope and success.

    This war established the emancipation of four million African descended enslaved people. It was needed, it was right for the people to be freed.

    Many died to see it so.

    We remember their sacrifices; we can imagine the heartache and the sorrow. It was a minor moment in the overall war and campaigns. Forgotten by most. Not these people, not today, not this weekend.

   We remember the lost soldiers and the families that they left behind.

    We as citizens and patriots remember and venerate the fallen heroes, and the ones who lost them. Families, friends, compatriots, comrades.

    We will not forget them.

    We thank them for their ultimate sacrifice; for most of us it was not in vain.

    Honored to see the place where 140 of you gave your lives. Sometimes I believe many of us do not value or try to give enough understanding what it means, what it meant, why we are blessed because of these past tragedies and events.

    We definitively need to learn from the past, appreciate the past, and learn to improve in the present and future.

    And always remember: freedom has never been free. There always is a cost paid by someone.