Memorial Day weekends are especially hard at our house. As a military family with someone in uniform for every conflict this great nation has faced going back to the Revolutionary War, we have a reverence for this land, what it takes to defend it, and those who do. We cherish the time spent in the uniforms representing her, and have been so damn proud to wear them.
We had also been singularly blessed through all those generations that we never lost a family member while wearing one. There have been close calls. The most spectacular is my memory of the story of my Uncle Bobby, a young Marine at the time, who fell three decks on the USS New Jersey during the chaos of a typhoon while off the coast of Korea during that conflict. Months in the hospital in traction, and they weren’t sure if he’d even walk again.
He did.
But that run of good fortune and health changed in 2016, when, as I…
