This week’s Friday Fill-In!  Enjoy!  And Happy Memorial Day!  Take a moment and think about what a great country we live in and how many have given their lives for the rights Americans have.

1. Do you think civilians, in general, understand the meaning of Memorial Day?

Most civilians do their best to take time to remember our nation’s servicemembers.  Something my husband and I have noticed, though, is that most Americans don’t understand the histories of Memorial Day and Veterans Day. 

Memorial Day goes all the way back to the mid-1860s, when two American Army general officers declared a “Decoration Day” for May 30th of every year, a date to decorate the fallen Civil War soldiers’ graves.  A date chosen because it wasn’t already commemorating a Civil War battle.  Memorial Day is exactly that…a day to honor the memories of those who’d served before us.

On the other hand, Veterans Day (Psst!  No apostrophe!) was first proclaimed as “Armistice Day” by Woodrow Wilson in November 1919 to commemorate the signing of the Armistice ending World War I.  In the 1950s the name of the holiday was changed to Veterans Day and was redesignated to honor all servicemembers, dead and alive.

2. What are your plans for the Memorial Day Weekend?

We’re having a few friends over for a barbecue.

We were hoping to have a new Intex pool set up by this weekend, but after some dialogue with our landlord, we decided that it was too much trouble and too risky a liability for a rental house.  But that’s for another blog post.  For now, feel free to browse this ad if you’d like to buy our never-assembled above-ground pool kit.

3. What skill/talent do you wish you had? submitted by The 3 Turners

I wish I could play piano.  I can play violin, but that’s it.  Treble clef, that’s it.  My oldest son’s piano recital is tomorrow night and we couldn’t be more proud of him!  I’m insanely jealous at the skill he has to play both treble and bass clefs together.  Have his right hand playing one thing, his left hand playing something else…maybe one day I’ll actually take lessons…

4. Which came first: the chicken or the egg? submitted by I Married Into The Army

Who the heck knows?

From a Book of Genesis perspective, the answer would be “chicken”.

Similarly, from an evolutionary perspective, you could consider two species breeding and coming up with a new breed — the chicken — born from the resultant egg…in that case, the egg would be first.

5. What is the best thing about your post (base)? The worst? submitted by Randomly, Robyn

The best thing about Hurlburt Field, Florida, is the warrior ethos here that is unlike anything Dave and I had ever experienced on an Air Force base. It reminds us of the two Army bases we were assigned to years ago: Fort Polk, Louisiana and Yongsan Army Garrison, Seoul, Korea (Check out the cool weather feed on the Yongsan homepage, brought to you by the 17th Operational Weather Squadron).

The worst thing?  The commute between our house and said base.  We have ONE east-west highway that connects our town with the base…and if there’s an accident on that road, you can forget about getting to the base anytime soon….