On a wall in my mother's home, beneath a glassed frame, there hangs a memorial certificate which, along with a Purple Heart, was posthumously awarded to the uncle I never met. On it is the inscription of powerful and solemn words authored by Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

The words are as true today — especially on this day — as they ever were, and they read as follows: "He stands in the unbroken line of patriots who have dared to die that freedom might live and grow and increase its blessings. Freedom lives, and through it he lives — in a way that humbles the undertakings of most men."

The year was 1944, and my mother was at work in a Chicago office building when the call came. It was short, her sister’s voice serious, and the message simple: Get home immediately. She didn’t ask questions. When you're 16 years old, your country's at war and a call like that comes in, you get home.

The Army chaplain had just been to the home to inform my beloved grandmother that her only son had been killed in action. By all accounts, my grandmother skipped the crying and went directly to the screaming.

Serving as a........

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