Remember the soldier’s love

I believe it’s important to forget the past and look to the future. The past is the past, and dwelling on our previous shortcomings, stumbles and mistakes is a waste of time. What’s done is done.

Too often we beat ourselves up over a less-than-perfect past, and it ends up debilitating, crippling and stifling us in the future. Our past often creates fear and keeps us from our destiny. For some reason we just can’t let it go.

Look forward, onward, upward to the future, I say.

One of the few exceptions to this rule comes every year on the last Monday in May when we observe Memorial Day. Unofficially since 1868, and officially since 1971, Memorial Day has been a day we stop in our tracks, quiet our hearts and focus on honoring the most honorable among us — our fallen soldiers.

Memorial Day started out as Decoration Day, when Civil War veterans would decorate the graves of their fallen fellow soldiers. Civil War poet Richard Watson Gilder once wrote, “Better than honor and glory, and history’s iron pen, was the thought of duty done and the love of his fellow men. “

You can do a lot of good for people, but nothing even comes close to the act of giving your life for someone. Laying your life down is undisputedly the greatest act of selflessness, compassion and love known to man. You really never know how much you are capable of loving until you are willing to give it all up, everything you have, even your life.

The very foundation of Christianity is based on the principle that God sent his only son to die for us, to lay down his life so we can be free and enjoy an eternal relationship with him. It’s been called the greatest love story ever told.

Have you ever considered the very act of putting on a military uniform is similar to the greatest love story ever told? Every time a soldier gears up for battle, he or she knows it could cost everything. And they do it anyway. What courage, purpose and honor. What love!

We don’t often think of our men and women in uniform as lovers, but in reality, they are the greatest lovers of us all.

Love has been described as being void of pride, not puffed up or haughty. Have you noticed how humble most soldiers are? I can honestly say I’ve never met an arrogant soldier.

They say love does not tolerate evil, but loves truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

You ask what is love? Love is being a soldier. Memorial Day reminds us the true meaning of love.

On Memorial Day, we remember through the love of a soldier we find peace. Just as freedom isn’t free, neither is peace. Someone has to pay the price for it. The soldier says, “I’ll pay the price. I’ll pay the ultimate price.”

It’s the love a soldier brings that gives us hope. We know no matter how deep, wide and determined evil is, the soldier will go even deeper, wider and be more determined.

The soldier gives us hope by saying, “Whatever the price, whatever the cost, whatever the sacrifice, I’m in. I will stand on that wall. I will give it all. If I could give more than my life I would.” The soldier declares with his life, not his words, that there is no price too high to pay.

Oh sure, we see love all the time. It’s all around us. A mother holding her newborn. A man giving his soon-to-be-wife his heart for life. A grandmother coloring with her 6-year-old granddaughter. A grandfather teaching his grandson how to fish. Love is everywhere, and it’s a beautiful thing. But greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.

On this Memorial Day, when you see soldiers, buy them a meal, a drink or a cigar. Maybe just give a hug. Better yet, tell them you love them. Because you know they love you. Simply by putting that uniform on, they are saying with their very life, “I love you.”

Dan Fagan is the host of the “The Dan Fagan Show,” which is televised statewide 6 to 9 a.m. weekdays on Fox-4 KTBY, and streamed on the The Dan Fagan Show Facebook page. Contact him at faganreport@me.com.