Memorial Day.

My school focus a lot on American patriotism... Which of course I loooove. 

On Friday, we had a special Assembly for Memorial Day.

 I love that we go all out to commemorate a special day and its true meaning.

 Nowadays Memorial Day means the end of school, the beginning of summer, pools opening, holiday weekend, camping or barbecuing with family and friends and sales at the mall. But just like any holiday, its always important to reflect on its purpose and meaning.

 I know for me I forget that it should be a day to remember all of the fallen soldiers that have fought for our freedoms and sacrificed their lives for this country, for us. Our Assembly reminded me of this and taught each of our students to honor those and show our upmost respect on Monday. 

It made me reflect on the brothers, sons and fathers who fought against each other in the Civil War. We had the most casualties in that war, a war we fought against our fellow Americans on ideas of equality and freedom. At the Battle of Gettysburg it is estimated that 46,000-51,000 soldiers between the two sides were killed in that battle alone. A grand total of 1,030,000 Americans lost their lives, which was 3% of the population at that time.  I thought of the horrible conditions of World War I. The diseases and infections in the trenches alone cost countless amount of lives. And then World War II that captivated and destroyed so many nations and had lasting affects at home as well. In WWII, 131,028,000 American casualties, thats including the 416,800 military deaths. And today people continue to serve our country, continue to fight valiantly when the call comes in Afghanistan and Iraq. 

I was so touched in our Assembly when our students, all hailing from different countries and ethnicities, stood together and recited the Gettysburg Address, given by Abraham Lincoln in November 1863:

"Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forthn on this continent a new nations, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. 

Now we are engaged in a great vicil war, testing whether that nation, or any nations so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. 

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the las full measure of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain--that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom--and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth"

President Lincoln, we have not forgotten what was said on that solemn day. We will remember all those that have died for this nation.