A Day to Remember and Give Thanks

I hope all of my friends and colleagues in the U.S. are enjoying a Memorial Day filled with wonderful moments alongside family, friends, and those you love. This is a weekend that for me always marks the passage of time – another year of school gone by for those of us with children and graduations and summer plans occupy our thoughts. It’s one of my favorite stretches of the calendar and a brief moment to recharge for the busyness that accompanies the year’s second half.

But it’s an opportunity first and foremost to pay tribute to the men and women for whom this holiday is dedicated in the U.S. – those who gave what Lincoln termed the “last full measure of devotion” to keep us safe and free. It’s impossible to comprehend the depth of their bravery and sacrifice or the loss and pain their families feel every day – and especially on this day.

So even as many of us relax and recharge, surely we will all take a moment to honor them. We must do whatever we can for the families they left behind and we should never cease thanking the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines still with us – including many of our own SAP family who served – for swearing an oath and donning a uniform in service to all of us.

Winston Churchill once famously remarked that “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.” He was right. We owe those lost – and their families – a debt that cannot be repaid. But we can honor their legacies by living the best lives we can. By being decent and kind in a moment that too often seems filled with meanness and ugliness. By living for “others” in a world that seems sometimes too obsessed with “me.” And by remembering always the extraordinary bravery, courage, and sacrifice of those who fought – and fight – for our freedom and way of life.