Make the most of Memorial Day

For many of us, this is a three-day weekend because of the Memorial Day holiday that falls today.

This holiday means different things to different people. For many, Memorial Day is considered the unofficial start to summer. Cook outs in the backyard and spending time with friends and family will be the agenda for most folks on Monday.

Additionally, many people will be hitting the road to enjoy a little relaxation out of town. Despite our grumbling about gas prices, most will not let this interfere with plans to travel.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with this. Life is quite hectic, and it should be considered a blessing whenever we can all pause and relax for a day.

However, it is important that we don't forget why we are observing this holiday. More and more, it seems like we view our holidays as a reason to get festive without any real focus on why the holiday was set aside in the first place.

In the case of Memorial Day, this holiday was established to recognize the men and women who have given their lives serving our country in the military. The number of people who have done this is staggering.

More than one million have died while serving during wartime, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. More than 400,000 died during World War II alone.

If those numbers don't make you pause and think, I don't know what will.

Obviously, our country's history would have been quite different if these people had not been willing to make this sacrifice. Without their commitment, monsters like Adolf Hitler would not have been stopped.

If Hitler had led Germany to victory in World War II, all of our lives would be much different. We certainly would not have been able to experience the wild, animal luxury that most of our lives are.

I recently watched the film Saving Private Ryan, which graphically re-enacted the storming of Normandy Beach during D-Day.

Before you say it, let me beat you to the punch. That was only a movie and there is no way it could have captured what the event was really like.

I agree with you.

However, if the film only captured one-tenth of what it was like, then it should provide us insight into what our soldiers have sacrificed for the cause of freedom. The horror of that event played a major role in allowing us to live the lives we are enjoying now.

If nothing else, this should make us all ponder how we are using the freedom these people fought and died for.

It is easy to take our freedom for granted. I know I do it all the time.

It is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that our freedom can never be taken away from us. After all, we are the powerful United States of America.

There are lots of threats to the freedom we enjoy, but complacency could be the one thing that eventually brings our country down.

It is part of our human nature to take things for granted, and if we do that with our freedom, we will one day wake up and wonder where it has gone.

So, on Monday, spend some time considering the sacrifices many have made for our country.