The Out-Lawyer's Blog

Memorial Day 2009.  So much to honor, so much not ever to forget.

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I really never got to know Dad until after Captain Gaskill returned safely from Europe after  the Allies prevailed over the Nazis. 

My Mom and Dad on their wedding day before the War broke out.

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As fate would have it, I was in Manhattan not far from Ground Zero when our country suffered the worst attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor.  And on 9-12-01 I was privileged to happen by the fire station house of Ladder 24, for whom the Catholic priest Chaplain, Mychael Judge, gave his life.  I took this picture of the truck and the portrait of a great priest.

Note the ash covering  Ladder Truck 24. People had already traced benedictions, like "America loves you" with their fingers.

And I was able to return to the World Trade Center Site the following year where the Wall Street church near the epicenter (one attended  by George Washington) had been spared.  People from all over the world had decorated the fence.  A fitting picture for today, Decoration Day.

And I've been an honored witness to the patriotism of the Original Americans as they gathered in my own home state....