A scene from the Bible most are familiar with, whether Christian or not, is what is commonly known as “the Last Supper.” It was the final meal Jesus had with his disciples before his arrest, trial and death on the cross. During the meal, known among the Jews as the Passover feast, Christ took the bread and the wine, gave it to his disciples and told them to eat and to drink “in remembrance of me.”
Two things that Jesus did strike me as interesting. The first is he took two of the most common elements of the Passover meal, the bread and the wine, things that would be part of an every day meal in their culture, and used them as prompts by which to remember him. The second is, in regards to the wine, he said, “as often as you drink of it.” He didn’t say once a year, once a month or once a week but he said, “as often as.” It’s similar to when he taught his disciples how to pray. On that occasion he said, “When you pray.” He didn’t say three times a day, once a week or only on the holidays. He simply said “when.”
So why do I highlight this scene from the life of Christ and a few of the things he taught? It is to emphasize a point regarding the holiday coming up in less than a week. Next Monday is Memorial Day. Most of us will be given the day off. There will be sales at the mall, backyard barbecues and, if the weather is nice on the coast, an opportunity to go to the beach. But how much remembering will there be? Specifically, how many of us will take a moment to reflect on the purpose of the holiday?
It seems to me there was much wisdom in what Christ did by taking two very common elements from a meal and using them as items by which to remember him, as opposed to designating a holiday when we were to remember him. It is far too easy for us to take advantage of a holiday as an extra day off from work or school and forget the reason it exists in the first place. It may be sacrilege to say, but maybe someone should have added this declaration to Memorial Day: “When you eat of that burger or hot dog and drink from that coke or beer, do so in remembrance of those who died for your freedom.”
When I was a kid, I remember Memorial Day being something special, particularly in the morning. At the community church down the road from our house there would be a service and, after the service, everyone would make their way over to the cemetery just a few blocks away. There, a ceremony would take place, led by veterans of the military who would commemorate their fallen comrades. At the conclusion, there would be a 21 gun salute. For my dad, a World War II veteran, the day’s ceremonies held great meaning and he wanted it to be the same for me and my siblings. It was and still is.
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If this has piqued your interest in doing something special for Memorial Day, other than passing it as just another day off, you may want to consider attending one of the events planned on the Peninsula.
One year our family headed up to San Francisco and took in a wonderfully executed event at the National Cemetery in the Presidio. This year again they have planned a ceremony, beginning with a band concert at 10:30 a.m., followed by a number of speakers. Included will be a Gold Star Family wreath presentation and a flyover by the Coast Guard. The program will last until about noon.
Also at 10:30 a.m., there will be a Memorial Day ceremony at the Golden Gate National Cemetery in San Bruno. This is another venue my family has taken advantage of in the past. The one we attended was similar to what is described above for the Presidio. There was a band, a number of veterans who spoke, and a 21 gun salute.
The third I can recommend, because my family has attended before, is at Skylawn Memorial Park, located near the intersection of State Route 92 and Highway 35. The event begins at 11 a.m. and includes the Pledge of Allegiance, an opening prayer, an Honor Guard presentation of our flag, Taps and an honorary speaker. The year we attended, everyone was invited to stay for a picnic after the ceremony had concluded.
I encourage you to consider attending a Memorial Day event this year. Go with family, go with friends or go alone. I promise you, you will not regret it.
A former member of the San Carlos City Council and mayor, Matt Grocott has been involved in political policy on the Peninsula for 17 years. He can be reached by email at mattgrocott@comcast.net.
On this Memorial Day, let us not forget that the Presidents that got us involved in all the 3 largest wars of recent times, Viet Nahm, Afghanistan, and Iraq, were all Republican Presidents! President Kennedy inherited the Viet Nahm war after Eisenhower, but soon decided that we should get out of that unwinnable bloodshed, which may very well be why he was assassinated. Have we learned anything from those mistakes?
we have been married 53 years when the salute to the armed forces medley is played he becomes a Marine the man saluting is still my husband but now he is called a Marine saluting his country.
salute to 5 war services army navy air force marines coast Guard each veteran stands when they hear their song it is amazing touches the heart especially the Marines partial I am due to my Vietnam vet remembrance..salute and standing so straight and tall.
Sorry to hear Rel. In what service were you? My eldest brother was there too. He was Army. Our neighbor's son, a classmate of my brother in high school, was killed in Vietnam. Also involved a helicopter.
during the salute to the five war services in our coun try i saw my hisband stand straight and tall for the marine from the halls of montezuma five services salute at the rec courtnbouse salute i had never seen him salut so straight and tall recognizing the marines in the 5 services salute totally blew my mind my husband is a vietnam vet purple heart vietnam veteran still respecting his country and the Marines i love watching the vets stand when the salute begin.
I always think about my uncle Leif, an officer onboard a Norwegian merchant marine vessel, killed when torpedoed by a German submarine outside Brooklyn in 1943. I have a memory of him, sitting on his shoulders when I was 2½, before he left Norway before WWII came to my country. He was one of more than 12000 Norwegians killed because of the war.
Jorg - there is actually a recent movie about this on Netflix. I never knew the role that the Norwegian merchants played during WWII supplying Great Britain with needed goods and materials. You are correct, thousands died with little acknowledgment.
Thanks, Dirk! There was some rumor that Uncle Leif's merchant ship may have been transporting weapon and ammunition from the US to England, but not verified. The family didn't know what happened until after the war, with the cause of death unknown until I took my parents to the Norwegian Seamen's Church in Brooklyn in 1970, where we were shown the church records from that period, showing that he died with a crushed skull, on April 13, 1943, by brother's 3rd birthday. That visit gave my Mom some closure about her brother.
Jorg - the movie actors are all Norwegian, the language is Norwegian, it was filmed in Norway and for those of us who do not speak the language the subtitles are in English. The main reason Norway was invaded by the Nazis was its long coast line and geographic proximity to the United Kingdom. And of course, the heavy water production.
There was also a slightly Hollywoodized movie with Kirk Douglas about the heavy water raids, "The Heroes of Telemark". A fellow student of mine at the technical university was the son of the designer of the plant, Professor Leif Tronstad, who was killed during one of the raids when he tried to flee on skies over to Sweden. Small world, after all.
Jorge, I've read a lot of history on WW2 but must admit, never a word about the role the Norwegians played. Thank you for sharing the story of your uncle. You've piqued my interest.
You’re welcome, Matt! There are many stories for sure, but probably the most important contribution was sabotage of their own heavy water plant at Rjukan, preventing the German’s from getting what they needed for their A-bomb development. Also, some 75% of Norway’s merchant fleet, the largest in the world before the war, was destroyed, but hard to determine how many were transporting war necessities.
Another great film about events in Norway is The 12th Man, about Jan Baalsrud, a Norwegian resistance fighter who at tremendous odds was able to get important documents into Sweden past occupying German forces.
HFAB: QYes, qite a story about Baalsrud. I have read his book “Nine lives”, where he describes how he was chased by Gestapo and evaded capture, but suffered from frostbite and snow blindness. His deteriorating physical condition forced him to rely on the assistance of Norwegian patriots and was left on a stretcher in the snow in Northern Norway, where he was supposed to be collected by the Norwegian resistance. Due to weather and German patrols he was there for 27 days and close to death for lack of food. While he lay behind a snow wall he built around a rock to shelter himself, he amputated nine of his toes to stop the spread of gangrene. This action saved the rest of his feet.
Fellow Norwegians finally found him and transported him by stretcher toward the border with Finland. He was put in the care of some Sami (the native people of northern Fenno-Scandinavia). While driving their reindeer on spring passage, they pulled him on a sled across Finland and into neutral Sweden, where he spent seven months in a hospital before he was flown back to Britain in an RAF de Havilland Mosquito aircraft. He soon went to Scotland to help train other Norwegian patriots, who were going to enter Norway to continue the fight against the Germans.
After a long struggle to learn to walk without his toes, Baalsrud eventually was sent to Norway as an agent at his request. He was still in active service at the time of the war's end, in 1945. That ended German occupation, and Baalsrud traveled to Oslo to reunite with his family, whom he had left five years before.[2]
Baalsrud was appointed honorary Member of the Order of the British Empire by the British.[3] He was awarded the St. Olav's medal with Oak Branch by Norway. He was a Second Lieutenant (Fenrik).
There. will be Memorial Day ceremonies at Union Cemetery in Redwood City. The cemetery has a statue of a Union Army soldier standing guard over a plot containing the remains of soldiers who fought for the North.
Thank you! I'll be thinking of my cousin Artie Popkin, a person I never met but who was my mother's closest cousin. She loved him and grieved his loss until the day she died decades and decades later. He died shortly at the age of 18 after being deployed to the Pacific during WWII.
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(18) comments
On this Memorial Day, let us not forget that the Presidents that got us involved in all the 3 largest wars of recent times, Viet Nahm, Afghanistan, and Iraq, were all Republican Presidents! President Kennedy inherited the Viet Nahm war after Eisenhower, but soon decided that we should get out of that unwinnable bloodshed, which may very well be why he was assassinated. Have we learned anything from those mistakes?
we have been married 53 years when the salute to the armed forces medley is played he becomes a Marine the man saluting is still my husband but now he is called a Marine saluting his country.
salute to 5 war services army navy air force marines coast Guard each veteran stands when they hear their song it is amazing touches the heart especially the Marines partial I am due to my Vietnam vet remembrance..salute and standing so straight and tall.
Memorial Day is always a sad day for me. During the Vietnam era, I had two helicopter roommates who left for tours and never returned alive.
Sorry to hear Rel. In what service were you? My eldest brother was there too. He was Army. Our neighbor's son, a classmate of my brother in high school, was killed in Vietnam. Also involved a helicopter.
Matt, I was an economist in the Transportation Corps in the Army's Ft. Eustis, VA. 1967-1969.
during the salute to the five war services in our coun try i saw my hisband stand straight and tall for the marine from the halls of montezuma five services salute at the rec courtnbouse salute i had never seen him salut so straight and tall recognizing the marines in the 5 services salute totally blew my mind my husband is a vietnam vet purple heart vietnam veteran still respecting his country and the Marines i love watching the vets stand when the salute begin.
I always think about my uncle Leif, an officer onboard a Norwegian merchant marine vessel, killed when torpedoed by a German submarine outside Brooklyn in 1943. I have a memory of him, sitting on his shoulders when I was 2½, before he left Norway before WWII came to my country. He was one of more than 12000 Norwegians killed because of the war.
Jorg - there is actually a recent movie about this on Netflix. I never knew the role that the Norwegian merchants played during WWII supplying Great Britain with needed goods and materials. You are correct, thousands died with little acknowledgment.
Thanks, Dirk! There was some rumor that Uncle Leif's merchant ship may have been transporting weapon and ammunition from the US to England, but not verified. The family didn't know what happened until after the war, with the cause of death unknown until I took my parents to the Norwegian Seamen's Church in Brooklyn in 1970, where we were shown the church records from that period, showing that he died with a crushed skull, on April 13, 1943, by brother's 3rd birthday. That visit gave my Mom some closure about her brother.
Jorg - the movie actors are all Norwegian, the language is Norwegian, it was filmed in Norway and for those of us who do not speak the language the subtitles are in English. The main reason Norway was invaded by the Nazis was its long coast line and geographic proximity to the United Kingdom. And of course, the heavy water production.
There was also a slightly Hollywoodized movie with Kirk Douglas about the heavy water raids, "The Heroes of Telemark". A fellow student of mine at the technical university was the son of the designer of the plant, Professor Leif Tronstad, who was killed during one of the raids when he tried to flee on skies over to Sweden. Small world, after all.
Jorge, I've read a lot of history on WW2 but must admit, never a word about the role the Norwegians played. Thank you for sharing the story of your uncle. You've piqued my interest.
You’re welcome, Matt! There are many stories for sure, but probably the most important contribution was sabotage of their own heavy water plant at Rjukan, preventing the German’s from getting what they needed for their A-bomb development. Also, some 75% of Norway’s merchant fleet, the largest in the world before the war, was destroyed, but hard to determine how many were transporting war necessities.
Another great film about events in Norway is The 12th Man, about Jan Baalsrud, a Norwegian resistance fighter who at tremendous odds was able to get important documents into Sweden past occupying German forces.
HFAB: QYes, qite a story about Baalsrud. I have read his book “Nine lives”, where he describes how he was chased by Gestapo and evaded capture, but suffered from frostbite and snow blindness. His deteriorating physical condition forced him to rely on the assistance of Norwegian patriots and was left on a stretcher in the snow in Northern Norway, where he was supposed to be collected by the Norwegian resistance. Due to weather and German patrols he was there for 27 days and close to death for lack of food. While he lay behind a snow wall he built around a rock to shelter himself, he amputated nine of his toes to stop the spread of gangrene. This action saved the rest of his feet.
Fellow Norwegians finally found him and transported him by stretcher toward the border with Finland. He was put in the care of some Sami (the native people of northern Fenno-Scandinavia). While driving their reindeer on spring passage, they pulled him on a sled across Finland and into neutral Sweden, where he spent seven months in a hospital before he was flown back to Britain in an RAF de Havilland Mosquito aircraft. He soon went to Scotland to help train other Norwegian patriots, who were going to enter Norway to continue the fight against the Germans.
After a long struggle to learn to walk without his toes, Baalsrud eventually was sent to Norway as an agent at his request. He was still in active service at the time of the war's end, in 1945. That ended German occupation, and Baalsrud traveled to Oslo to reunite with his family, whom he had left five years before.[2]
Baalsrud was appointed honorary Member of the Order of the British Empire by the British.[3] He was awarded the St. Olav's medal with Oak Branch by Norway. He was a Second Lieutenant (Fenrik).
There. will be Memorial Day ceremonies at Union Cemetery in Redwood City. The cemetery has a statue of a Union Army soldier standing guard over a plot containing the remains of soldiers who fought for the North.
Thank you! I'll be thinking of my cousin Artie Popkin, a person I never met but who was my mother's closest cousin. She loved him and grieved his loss until the day she died decades and decades later. He died shortly at the age of 18 after being deployed to the Pacific during WWII.
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Keep the discussion civilized. Absolutely NO personal attacks or insults directed toward writers, nor others who make comments.
Keep it clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
Don't threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated.
Be truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything.
Be proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
Anyone violating these rules will be issued a warning. After the warning, comment privileges can be revoked.