It's Memorial Day. It’s the start of the summer season. Also it’s the day we remember all of our war dead. All from every war we’ve been in. I’ve been thinking about my father, and other relations lately. Particularly about my father and uncles. This in regard to they being Negro and fighting for the racially segregated U.S. armed forces during World War Two.

There's my Dad. Sargent Alfred B. Smith United States Army Air Corps 1944. He and my Uncles were Americans defending their country. Despite everything they had suffered this was their country. As they saw it, no one, not the Klan not Hitler was gonna say it wasn’t. I’m thinking back to the 1950’s when I was a little boy, and my Dad, and my Uncles, combat vets all, towered over me like redwoods.

There was a strength even in their softest words. I felt very safe in that forest of elders. They’d come back. They were home, and were setting about to make their country, their rightful home better. They had just fought and helped to defeat the most evil powers to appear in centuries. If those forces had won I would not be here nor would many of you.

My elders never spoke openly about what they’d seen, and done. However we could see the road map of battles cut into their body’s. When at the beach I saw war scars on my Dads legs burns on an Uncle, and shrapnel wounds on another. They didn’t have to tell us we saw, and understood.

They're gone now, and I miss them all. So I say God Bless you Dad, Uncle Lee, Uncle George, Uncle Clyde, Uncle Owen. Thank you for giving us our lives, our hopes, and the World.