Memorial Day: A Time to Support Our Military Families

Every year at this time I think about families who have ties to the military. The wife who is home with kids while her husband is serving overseas, or the sister who Skype's with her brother every week to stay in touch, or the mom who left her family home to do her duty for her country.

My uncle is a retired colonel in the Air Force and he and my aunt are true military people. My grandmother was always so proud of him, and my aunt and traveled to see them all over the world. I remember her visiting them when they were stationed in Japan, Germany, the Philippines, Hawaii, South Carolina and finally Florida. All would stop when the phone would ring with them calling from oversees.

How can a mom be so far away from her child in the military and not be worried every moment of the day. And how can a mom of a soldier not be the proudest mom in town? And what about the sister, the daughter or son, do they worry too? Of course they do. Everyone does.

I remember the story my grandmother told of her three brothers when they were united together in Hawaii shortly after the attack of Pearl Harbor. They were all on duty and did not know they were all so close to each other. My one uncle spotted the other on the side of the road one day and pulled over to pick him up. They eventually united with the third brother and the local newspaper did an article on them. My grandmother had saved the newspaper photo. They all had survived war, which at that time was a real miracle.

Military families all have a story of their own. Some are of yesterday when the grandpas and uncles were sent overseas. Others are of recent times. All the stories are treasured pieces of our history, reasons why our country is still a free country. Stories that need to be told especially to those who, like me, aren't very connected to a military family.

Today, we celebrate Memorial Day, honoring our military troops who have served and given the ultimate sacrifice. I can't imagine being a mom or a sister or a child of someone in the military, as was my grandmother. But in fact, many faces around our town are just that. They are faces of moms who have kids over in Iraq, or they are faces of wives with husbands in Afghanistan, or they are the face of a child whose dad is on duty oversees.

These families continually experience the unknown everyday, just like my grandmother did. I don't know how they do it. I don't know where they get their strength every day to wake up and go another day wondering, worrying, being proud but being without.

Families who don't know this agony need to spend today just thinking of those who do. Remembering these military families and how they are sacrificing for our continued freedom, for us, for today! Remembering how we need not only to thank the vets of yesterday who served years ago, when my grandmother was bringing up my mom, but we need to thank the families of those serving today, too. We need to remember those who are currently overseas in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and those at Selftridge ANG right in our own backyard.

How do we do that?

We get involved.

The organization Blue Star Mothers is one that helps local troops when they are deployed and when they are serving oversees. They send packages to our troops reminding them people are at home praying and thinking about them. They help those who return with injuries and need help.

According to the Macomb Daily, the group rallied in Michigan to get Gold Star family license plates for military families who want to honor a loved one. Another organization mentioned, Homes for Our Troops, recently had an event raising money to build homes for those returning home. The Macomb home built for Alex Knapp, a wounded veteran who recently passed away, now has Sgt. Nick Koulchar living there. He is also a wounded veteran from Michigan who lost both legs.

We, the ones who don't deal with military life every day, need to be involved with these groups, or other groups like them in any way possible. We need to educate our children at places like the where they can actually touch and feel the inside of military planes. We need to attend a parade like the one that took place in St. Clair Shores yesterday, the one that I have marched in for 13 years in a row.

That is how we can support the military families, the moms, brothers and sisters, and especially the children, along with the veterans and active duty troops. We need to let these military families know that even though we are not in their shoes, we still care, we still thank them and support them. We are thinking and praying for them and we want to hear their stories as well.