I decided to watch Saving Private Ryan today.

[Wonder Why]

15. You do need to go visit the Normandy gravesite. Both my wife and I were shocked and saddened when we saw all

the gravesites. It's one thing to see some. It's another to see thousands. Very humbling. My father, uncles and their cousins all served. One uncle was offered a battlefield commission but turned it down because he said he didn't mind dying for our country but he couldn't handle sending other men into battle to die.

The one in Normandy is not even the biggest American war cemetery in Europe.

Even walking through Arlington Cemetery and reading the names on the gravestones is very difficult as is visiting the Wall and seeing all those names. The same is true of the Civil War cemeteries. So many died.

Both my grandfathers served in the early part of the 20th Century.

My older brother was wounded in Vietnam. I just served.

Every time I listen to the song "Where have all the flowers gone?", I think of my visits to military cemeteries. I always stop and read some of the names and try to think what those young soldiers were like.