0:01 [music]
0:01 >> And where are you going? What [music] do you want? Hello and welcome to the way to wow shows this special edition for Memorial Day. The second Memorial Day we we will we've spent together. We will spend together. It is I have to think about this for a minute. On Monday, May 25th, 2026 and we are
0:39 while there is a ceasefire going on, we are at a time of war. There have been a small number of Americans killed and this Memorial Day we honor them in particular as we honor all of the our fellow citizens who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our country on Memorial Day. I was just listening to a podcast featuring a military veteran and he rightly pointed out this is not Veterans Day. This is
1:15 not Armed Forces Day. So we're not honoring veterans, service members of past service, nor are we honoring current members of the military. Memorial Day honors those who were killed in the while fighting for our country and and that's why flags are flown at half-staff until midday and then they're raised to full-staff in honor of of those people. So I've prepared a
1:52 short series of thoughts for you today in in the hopes that this will make your Memorial Day more meaningful. So, for many, um it it marks the unofficial start of summer, barbecues, travel, and a long weekend. Um but its meaning, as I was alluding to a moment ago, is is much weightier. And it's quieter. Uh you may notice the tone of my voice is different than uh my my usual uh way of speaking on the
2:27 Way to Wow shows.
2:29 >> [snorts]
2:29 >> So, it's a day set aside to remember those who never came home from war. Not the victories and not the politics, but the people and most specifically uh the cost. The cost not only to the individuals themselves who were killed, but to their loved ones, their family members, whom they left behind um to continue with their lives without this person among them,
3:02 >> [snorts]
3:02 >> um at least corporeally. So, across the country, I hope uh the American flag flies at half-staff. And it's a silent remem- a silent uh remembrance that um we um that that that what we celebrate today rests on um a sacrifice that that cannot be repaid. So, [snorts] every generation of this country has asked something of its young people.
3:35 >> [snorts]
3:35 >> Uh every generation has received a response, often given in full and and without return. Um starting with the War for Independence and continuing on until just a few weeks ago. What follows are three readings from three moments in time. Three ways of saying, I think, the same thing. That freedom is not free, as clichéd as that may sound, and that memory is a form of gratitude.
4:15 So, the first reading is the Gettysburg Address in the midst of the American Civil War, at a battlefield in Pennsylvania. A nation that was still defining itself paused to bury its dead. And there, President Abraham Lincoln offered a few words. Fourscore and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty,
4:51 and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, 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 gave their lives that that nation might live.
5:28 It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot 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.
6:05 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 last full measure of devotion. That we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain.
6:41 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. Lincoln's words were were were not long, but they were heavy with permanence. A reminder that nations are not only built by those who live in them, but also by those who died for them. And
7:16 his admonition that we take the baton and continue the work, dedicate ourselves to the cause for which those who have fought for our country died, I think is as true today as it was 160 years ago. But the sacrifice did not end with the Civil War. Half a century later, the world was drawn into another kind of
7:53 war, one fought across oceans, trenches, and fields far from home. And it left behind a different kind of voice. During the First World War, soldiers wrote not only reports of battle, but reflections on loss, on what it meant to remember the dead. One of the most enduring came from a battlefield doctor, John McCrae. In Flanders fields, the poppies blow
8:31 between the crosses, row on row, that mark our place, and in the sky, the larks, still bravely singing, fly, scarce heard among the guns below. We are the dead. Short days ago we lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, loved, and were loved,
9:06 and now we lie in Flanders fields. Take up our 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.
9:46 John McCrae's poem is not a speech from power. It's a voice from absence from a man who did his best to prevent death but could not many many many times. A reminder that those who fall in war do not ask for celebration only remembrance.
10:22 And yet war continues as long as human beings populate the earth. The language of sacrifice changed with each generation but the burden carried by those who served remained the same. Some of the most honest reflections came not from leaders or poets but from those who simply came home and and tried to explain what could not be easily spoken.
10:58 In more recent memory writers and veterans have tried to capture what war leaves behind not just in history books but human but in the human mind. One of the clearest voices comes from the experience of the Vietnam War from Tim O'Brien. They carried things. They carried far. They carried fear. They carried the weight of brothers beside them and the memory of those
11:33 who were no longer there to carry anything at all. They carried stories they would never tell their families. And when they came home, if they came home, they carried something else, too. Silence. Because there are some experiences that do not end when the war ends. They echo in memory,
12:08 in sleep, in moments of sudden stillness. Memorial Day is not only about honoring those who died. It is about remembering them fully, clearly, and without forgetting the cost of their absence. Today, we remember across generations,
12:45 from Civil War fields to World War trenches to modern conflicts far from home. Different uniforms, different centuries, but the same cost. And so, on this day, we do something simple. We remember. Not to glorify war, but to honor sacrifice. Not to celebrate loss, but to acknowledge it. Because a nation that forgets what it
13:21 has asked of its people risks forgetting the value of what it has been given. So, to those who served and did not return, I hope you, we, will remember them not as names lost to time, but as lives still held in memory and thus make them eternal.
13:59 Thank you for joining me on this Memorial Day. I hope you have a meaningful day and some celebration, some time spent with family and loved ones. And throughout the day, if you happen to pass by an American flag flying, take a moment to remember someone who's no longer with us, even if you didn't know that person well.
14:35 And perhaps say a small prayer for those who are left behind. Courage all times, my friends. Marie darling, you are