As you may know, I am the drama leader at Glenview Baptist Church. Having been in contact with my uncle, a Viet Nam vet, and my nephew, a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom, I wanted to do something special for Memorial Day.

Not to be confused with Veteran’s Day (which honors all veterans, living and dead), Memorial Day is a day to pay tribute to those killed in military service. It began as a day on which the widows of Confederate soldiers would go out and lay flowers on the graves of fallen soldiers.

I contacted Uncle Robert, who is a Legionnaire, about some material for my tribute. He sent me a script called “What Is a Vet?” I took this and adapted it for Memorial Day. The tribute was read this past Sunday, May 29th, by Brigadier General Bill Guy. Click the links below to hear the audio from the service. (These files are pretty big, so you may want to right click on the link and choose “Save Target As”.)

MemorialDayTribute.mp3
MemorialDayTribute.wma (Windows Media)

And the script can be found here: WhatIsAVeteran.doc