Remember sacrifices that gave us freedom

Memorial Day is a day that gives us a chance to remember, honor, and value those countless courageous souls (mostly young people) who sacrificed their lives to protect our beloved country, thereby ensuring the safety of its citizens. Who among us is not the beneficiary of the priceless legacy that they bestowed upon us?

Politics, as we have too often come to know it, plays no role in the sincere recognition of the significance and dignity that this important day merits.

Regardless of one's socioeconomic class, or racial, religious, and ethnic differences, most of us have a chance to make something out of the relatively few years that we are all given.

As the present embarrassing presidential scenario continues to unfold, one can hope that whoever becomes the leader of our beloved America does nothing to increase the enormous losses that our citizens have already experienced.

One is reminded of the State of the Union address given in January 1941 by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, known as the Four Freedoms speech. In it, he proclaimed that there are four freedoms to which all Americans are entitled: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from fear, and freedom from want. The legendary artist Norman Rockwell commemorated those four freedoms by creating a painting of each in 1943.

Let us celebrate Memorial Day. And while it is foremost a national day of remembrance, we can apply those noble concepts locally as well. Please remember that we are here only because of the valor of those who made it so.

Leon J. Hoffman

Chicago