Memorial Day was originally called Decoration Day; a day in which to honor those that have fallen in battle.
For most Americans it has lost a lot of meaning and is now just the official start of summer, a day off work, and a reason to get the family together for a backyard barbeque or go to the beach.
Many of my family members served in the armed forces; Dad, Uncle Ed, Uncle Aldwin, and Uncle Larry.
Aldwin died in WWII, way before I was born.
Ed also served in WWII and dad in Korea.
Larry served in the latter days of Vietnam.
I recently saw where the oldest WWII Congressional Medal of Honor recipient died last Thursday.
Navy Lt. John Finn was born in 1909, joined the Navy at the age of 17, and was at Pearl Harbor on Sunday morning, December 7, 1941 when the Japanese attacked.
Despite head wounds and other injuries, Finn, the chief of ordnance for an air squadron, continuously fired a .50-caliber machine gun from an exposed position as bullets and bombs pounded the Naval Air Station at Kaneohe Bay in Oahu. He then supervised the rearming of returning American planes.
In 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt awarded him the first CMH given to someone who survived the Pearl Harbor attack.
Lt. Finn never meant to be a hero; that thought would never cross someone’s mind during an act of heroism.
I have other heroes that, also, never thought of what they were doing.
The New Living Translation says this; the godly people in the land are my true heroes! I take pleasure in them! Ps 16:3
It’s the Godly people that have influence my spiritual life that are my heroes.
I have to start with my Grandmother Swanson and Aunt Sarah for training up a child.
Those Sunday school teachers and VBS workers that tolerated all of us little brat’s and taught us God’s word.
Mark Stepherson for witnessing to me on the school bus.
For my late friend, Steve Barnett, who gave me a Chick tract that changed my life forever.
College professor Brother Leon Gaylor, the Christian friends at JBC, my church family-past and present, especially my CrossRoads family.
And my wife, who prays for me and keeps me pointed to the straight and narrow.
Thank you, my heroes.