All day of some, some gave all. A Memorial Day Reflection. This is Dr. Jim Denison's The Daily

article podcast for Monday, May 27th, 2019. Howard William Osterkamp served in the U.S. Army during the

Korean War. He was wounded in the leg by shrapnel, but Army doctors misdiagnosed his injury.

He was sent back to the front lines with his leg broken in two places and served there for

four months.

He spent a total of nine months on the front lines during the conflict and later received

the Purple Heart.

Oster Camp is widely credited with a phrase that is especially appropriate today.

All gave some. Some gave all. As the son and grandson of military veterans, I know something of the sacrifices so many men and women have made to preserve our freedom.

Today at 3 p.m., we are asked to pause for the national moment of remembrance,

a minute of reflection and gratitude

for the 1.1 million soldiers from all our wars who died for our nation. The Memorial Day

weekend also marks the beginning of summer. Barbecues and parties dominate the holiday. Americans

will consume 818 hot dogs every second from Memorial Day to Labor Day. That's 7 billion hot dogs in total.

We will spend $1.5 billion on meat and seafood over the weekend. More than 42 million of us are

traveling. Such activities are a strange way to remember the soldiers who died for our country.

We might expect this day to be entirely one of somber reflection.

And yet, the fact that we can spend Memorial Day happily with our families and friends is a significant consequence of the sacrifices we honor today.

C.S. Lewis wrote,

It is easy to think that the state has a lot of different objects, military, political, economic,

and whatnot. But in a way, things are much simpler than that.

The state exists simply to promote and to protect the ordinary happiness of human beings in this

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