Memorial Day is meditation and remembrance

Memorial Day is a time for reflection, a day we come together to collectively honor those who have sacrificed in service to our great nation. A day we openly show our deepest appreciation to those men and women in uniform who gave their last full measure of devotion for the freedom we all share.

That reflection resonates from our heart and soul, shown through the tears and the bonding we as veterans and the families of veterans share when we give thought to those warriors now gone. I give thought to my high school classmates who gave their lives before they were of legal age to share a toast. I give thought to those who survived combat but were never able to deal with the trauma of war and succumbed to an untimely death at their own hand. Then there are those of us who carry the emotions from the battlefield quietly in our souls and just live out our lives … and thoughts that we may carry for a lifetime.

A generation of warriors has stood proud since the early days of America's Revolution and we reflect through our history to those who have served. Our World War I generation is now gone. The last living veteran of that war died February 2011, at 110 years old, and was buried with honors at Arlington. It is a historical timeline worthy of reflection.

[Remember all, forget none this Memorial Day]

Raymond Haerry, a survivor of Pearl Harbor, was serving on the USS Arizona that fateful day of Dec. 7, 1941. Haerry died this past month at the age of 94 and his wish was to be reunited with his shipmates who went down with the sinking of the Arizona during the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The attack killed 1,177 of the ship's 1,511-member crew, including the more than 1,000 crew members whose remains were not recovered from the ship. The average age of the crew members on the USS Arizona at the time of the attack was 19. Haerry noted before his death that he carried the suffering in his heart for his shipmates for all those years and thought it only appropriate that he share their sacrifice by joining them for eternity. May his soul now rest in peace.

The battle of the Chosin Reservoir during the Korean War (sometimes referred to as the "forgotten war") pitted 15,000 allied ground troops against 120,000 Chinese infantrymen. When it was over, more than 3,000 of our troops had died and 6,000 wounded… a sacrifice that should not to be forgotten this Memorial Day.

The sacrifice of my generation from Vietnam is in the 58,000 names etched on a simple black granite wall in Washington, D.C. The ongoing conflict in Afghanistan and Iraq over the past 16 years has cost the lives of nearly 7,000 U.S. service members. The sacrifice of war seems to be never-ending and the scars of battle are painful and everlasting.

My wife and I recently traveled the Pacific Coast Highway in our RV from Southern California to Washington state. Along the way we noticed many roadside signs honoring the sacrifices of the fallen. Tributes honoring hometown heroes were noted along highways and byways, in city parks and rest stops. They are much the same honors we share in Alaska, such as the Byers Lake Veterans Memorial, James Bondsteel Bridge of Honor over the Knik River, and Medal of Honor Recipient Archie Van Winkle Memorial in Juneau. Tributes sponsored by the local VFW, Boy Scout troops and the Rotary or chamber of commerce. Every sign we saw along the way paid homage to the valued service of our military by reflecting on the same sacrifices that have been shared from generation to generation.

I, like many others, pass these signs on a regular basis with an acknowledging glance at their existence, but many times only give a moment of thought to the honor these signs represent. One sign we passed outside Arcata, California, honored Kevin Ebbert, a heroic Navy SEAL killed in action in November 2012, in direct support of Operation Enduring Freedom. I served with his father, Jeff Ebbert, in the same SEAL community in 1975 and, tragically, Jeff left us too soon. I gave pause to the reverence of this highway sign as we passed. Two generations came together in my thoughts at that moment along a California highway, father and son, brothers-in-arms, teammates, a bond held strong by service and sacrifice.

It is our sacred duty to preserve the legacy of these brave Americans. It remains our charge to work for peace, freedom and security. Let us always strive to uphold the founding principles our service members died defending, let their legacy continue to inspire our nation and let this solemn lesson of service and sacrifice be honored.

Laddie Shaw is a U.S. Navy veteran of the Vietnam War who served with SEAL Team One. He also served as director of the Alaska Division of Veterans Affairs.

The views expressed here are the writer's and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary@alaskadispatch.com. Send submissions shorter than 200 words to letters@alaskadispatch.com.