This past Memorial Day in the year 2000, I sat back and remember our veterans and those who gave their lives for our country. Sadly, many people have turned this day, and many other national holidays, into an excuse to miss school or work and to have a BBQ or a party - I used to be one of these people. At a young age I became cynical towards this country; I even refused to say the “Pledge of Allegiance” - I would not pledge my allegiance to a country I had no faith in.

This all changed when my mother and I attended a play entitled A Piece of My Heart, written by Shirley Lauro, about six young women who, during the Vietnam War, became nurses or traveled as performers. I can not ever begin to describe the emotions this play invoked; I know I was the youngest person in the audience, and the others were Veterans who had served in World War II, who served in Korea and Vietnam, they where the soldiers and nurses that I have read about - and they were all crying. The play is based on the truth, and what happened to the women who risked everything to serve this nation, who risked their lives so that those young BOYS could hopefully go home. To this day, I can still see the final scene of the play in my mind, and I can hear one line by a young nurse: “With each soldier, each boy that dies - he takes a piece of my heart . . . .”

Until that day, I did not know the hell that those brave women and soldiers went through in Vietnam, nor the contempt with which they were treated when they returned home. I can not to this day comprehend how anyone could treat these brave women in such a manner - they went to Vietnam to bring those soldiers home in one piece, and look how Americans have honored them, by forgetting them.

In the spring of 1998, I visited the memorials to the Vietnam and Korean Wars in Washington D.C. While at the Vietnam Wall, I stood there watching scenes from the play in my mind and I looked around me, I saw old men - and I knew that once they were young, and that they probably knew someone whose name was written on that wall. I did my best not to cry, and while trying to remain composed - I over heard a conversation between three people from my school. Two girls were trying to copy a name off the wall, but it was too high for them to reach. Their friend said; “Just copy any name, it doesn’t matter.” I most likely took that out of context, but I never heard to rest of the conversation, I do not know what they were originally talking about - I had to walk away. I took the words “It doesn’t matter” as meaning that the life of that soldier did not matter. It did; that name belong to a person, and he was a friend, a brother, a son, a father, a husband, he was alive and gave his life so that others may live. It does matter. I had to walk away, so that I could cry.

Why do I cry when I visit these places? When I think of the past? Because I did not know, because in EVERY American History class I have ever taken, the extent of what is taught is dates. All I truly know about World War II Is about the Holocaust, I do not know anything of Korea or Vietnam - So I went out on my own, and I sought the truth. And the truth? That today there are hundreds of Veterans in America on welfare, who proudly served their country, and who are now FORGOTTEN by that same country. Now, on National Holidays to remember these brave men and women, people go and have a celebration for a free-day, get drunk and act like overall fools. A small group of people go to memorials around the nation, to graveyards, to services or something else in memory of those who gave their lives, and those who came home.

To the Veterans still here today, I want to thank them. Thank them for everything that they gave for this country so that others could be free. Thank them for risking everything for people they never met, and those who were not yet born. I am too young to remember the Vietnam War, and I wasn’t alive during World War II, and I do not know if I can ever know what these brave men went through, nor do I know if I will ever understand war. But, I want to today express my thanks and respect for all the men and women who served this country, and those who gave their lives for what they believed them - because of them, I have faith in this country.