High school graduations have been going on now for a few weeks and with that is the promise of a bright future, with privileges and choices that will bring each individual graduate to their own aspirations.

While walking down the aisle at commencement or attending all of the parties that signify accomplishment, stop and consider another group of

high school students, who because of their bravery and their sacrifice have given you the greatest gift you will ever know

&045; freedom.

With this gift they just want you to strive to do your best and to make the world a better place. These soldiers, many of whom never had the chance to graduate, or to walk down the aisle for that diploma, have given their lives so that the world would be a safer place for you.

Today is Memorial Day, a day set aside to honor these men and women, who have given their lives in the fight for our freedoms. It is a day we remember the people that not only touched our own lives, but protected our children’s future as well.

Memorial Day was originally called Decoration Day, because it was a time set aside to honor the nation’s Civil War dead by decorating the graves of many valiant soldiers.

In 1971, Congress declared Memorial Day a national holiday to be celebrated on the last Monday in May. Each year at Arlington National Cemetery, a small American flag is placed upon each grave, and a wreath is laid on the tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

Locally, we go to the cemeteries with fresh flowers in hand and unanswered questions on our minds.

Touching questions like, &uot;If dad would have made it through the war, what did he want to be?&uot; Or, &uot;Do you think he would be proud of the decisions that I made in my life?&uot; These questions, like the wind, come and go, but on Memorial Day they seem to take center stage.

It is the one day you seem to relive the feeling of the hug and kiss you shared at the bus stop a lifetime ago, or you can taste the apple pie you shared at the picnic shortly before they went away.

It is in these memories you capture your youth and with that, the hope of a generation of young men and women trying to live up to, and honor the duty before them.

Freedom was what our soldiers fought and died for and on this Memorial Day, please remember to use that same freedom to stop and honor these fine soldiers.

In honor of Memorial Day, I wanted to print a poem by Lt. Col. John McCrae, who after four years on the western front in World War I, died in 1918.

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

Take up your quarrel with the foe;

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

(Scott Schmeltzer is publisher of the Tribune. His column runs Monday.)