We Remember

Today, this glorious Memorial Day, we remembered. We promised to never forget the sacrifices made by our military service members and families. Today we did what those 6,469 service members who died during the Iraq War could not do. We ran. We ran as a pledge to always remember those men and women who have given their lives for us...for me...for you. 

I think as civilians, we never fully understand what it's like or what it really means when there is a loss in the military family. I (like so many civilians) could turn the tv off when I got too uncomfortable with the consequences of war, or put down the paper when they spoke of the devastating going-ons of war...but the military families can't.  It's their reality, their life, their friend, their neighbor, their comrade. They live with this pain, through this pain and suffer more consequences of this war than we do. The military families and especially the spouses, come together and join each other in their grief, walk each through it and find a way to support each other no matter what life brings. One particular military spouse's husband died 23 days after the birth of their third child. He died without ever being able to hold his baby girl. He died serving us. His wife worked through her grief by running. Out of this healing came the group, Wear Blue: Run to Remember. They pledge to run in remembrance for all those military service men who have fallen in the last 11 years. Every Saturday they meet and form a circle of remembrance and read the names of those that have died over the past 11 years on that particular weekend. Then they run a select amount of miles for those fallen men and women. Whenever they run, they remember and honor those service men and women by wear blue. So today, we joined thousands of others, and pledged our miles and ran for those who gave the ultimate sacrifice. We run for the Fallen. For the Fighting. For the Families.

Wear Blue: Run to Remember!

Here's our little group getting ready to run:) We had many pledge miles and run on their own, hopefully next year we will have a much bigger group turn out!

I do have a funny family story...it's never dull when you're around my family;) So, my mom, aunt and uncle decided to walk their pledged 5 miles, but they wanted to walk to High Bridge. I told them that it was 4.4 miles to High Bridge. They told me the map said 3ish and I just dropped the subject. Well...after wondering when they would return, my poor dad (who ran the 5 miles with us) then walked 5 miles to find our "lost sheep". It ended up being much further than they had thought (I will not rub it in, but...I WAS RIGHT!) and they walked for 9 miles! Way over the amount pledged. Over achievers;)  What a day! Let's hope everyone recovers from their little adventures;)