{"id":78088,"date":"2021-05-31T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-05-31T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=78088"},"modified":"2021-05-28T19:53:51","modified_gmt":"2021-05-29T00:53:51","slug":"memorial-day-9","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=78088","title":{"rendered":"Memorial Day"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-C9St1TyVg5U\/T8Nk6CsqzZI\/AAAAAAAACIo\/zkD86mpjBRk\/s1600\/American+Cemetery+Verdun.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The image I&#8217;ve posted is an American cemetery in France, near Verdun. These graves are for soldiers killed in World War I. There are nearly 15,000 graves at the site. Over 53,000 Americans died in combat in World War I and 116,000 Americans in total died as a result of the war. My grandfather fought in World War I and was able to survive the carnage and come home. He was one of the lucky ones. And because he was lucky, so am I.<br \/><br \/>My grandfather died in 1959, before I was born. I never did get a chance to know him, or to thank him for his service. He did get 40 more years, time enough to marry and raise a family that included my father. I don&#8217;t doubt that each of these crosses represents a man who would have loved to have 40 more years to live, to do the things my grandfather was able to do.<br \/><br \/>We remember those who gave their all on this day precisely because of the enormity of the sacrifice they made. Every one of these crosses represents a human life that was cut short, a dream unrealized. We owe these individuals our gratitude in ways that we cannot adequately express.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The image I&#8217;ve posted is an American cemetery in France, near Verdun. These graves are for soldiers killed in World War I. There are nearly 15,000 graves at the site. Over 53,000 Americans died in combat in World War I and 116,000 Americans in total died as a result of the war. My grandfather fought [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":358,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,19,434,131],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history-and-its-making","category-memoriam","category-mr-d","category-war-and-peace"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/358"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=78088"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78088\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78090,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78088\/revisions\/78090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=78088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=78088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=78088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}