I am still haunted

In 2012, I took two grandsons to visit the Normandy battle sites in France. At the American cemetery overlooking Omaha Beach, My grandsons and I were looking for the graves of two family members. While there, several very large buses pulled up in the parking lot and unloaded hundreds of French school children aged up to 12 or 13. For the next hour, a priest would sprinkle holy water on crosses and the children would kneed and pray over the American dead. It was a moving experience that stays with me today.

But, as I was leaving, I was struck with utter distress that I would never live long enough to see American school children praying over the graves of American soldiers. It still haunts me today.

Wow.. very sad

Vary touching , thank you for sharing .

Sad to see America in the condition we are in. Those crosses kept us free and our kids do not even know about them anymore.

Around 2009 my wife and I decided to take our granddaughters to the Memorial Day observance at the cemetery in Millersburg, OR. There was a speaker in uniform, someone from the V.A., and three other attendees. Sadly, it seems to have become a day to barbeque, rather than a day to remember.

In a way it's understandable, as the last great war (WW II) was over 74 years ago, and the last significant war (V.N.) ended about 43 years ago. Since then it's been an all-volunteer force with just a tiny percentage of the population serving, and the general population has lost direct connection to the military and has felt no personal loss or sacrifice. Since V.N. we've had a seemingly never-ending series of smaller conflicts in the Middle East fought by those volunteers who are very professional, and many of whom are professionals, but college boy John Doe is in no danger of having to serve at all.

I do not believe it to be a good thing.

I agree that we do not give the veterans the respect that they deserve. The veterans of WW1,WW2,KOREA ,and Viet Nam were under some very adverse conditions. That is no disrespect to any that served in the other wars.
If you look at deaths during each war, every community was affected during WW2,Korea not as much, Viet Nam I knew of 2 or 3 that did not come home and I have not known any of the ones that died in Operation Desert Storm. This may be some of the declining respect for our deceased veterans.