John,

Today, people across the country are honoring service members who have
made the ultimate sacrifice to secure our liberty and defend our freedom.

Memorial Day is for mourning, remembering, and cherishing those who lost
their lives in military service. I hope that you will take a moment today
to think about the Americans who made the ultimate sacrifice in service to
our country.

For many of us, today is a reminder of friends, family, or even fellow
service members who lost their lives. That’s why I wanted to take the time
to share with you a personal story of someone close to my heart who lost
their life while serving.

My uncle Michael was 18 years old when he went to Vietnam, and he never
made it home. He was killed before his 19th birthday, when his helicopter
was shot down. My grandmother was presented with a folded flag, and
informed her son died in service. I never met him because he died before I
was born, but I will never forget, years later, the look in my
grandmother’s eyes whenever she looked at that flag. She was never really
the same after that, according to my aunts and uncles. I remember during a
trip to D.C. when I was in college getting my uncle Michael’s name
scratched off on the wall at Arlington Cemetery. I brought it home and she
cried. My aunt would later serve, and my nephew is currently serving in
the Army.

I have never been a proponent of war. It pains me that my uncle was sent
to Vietnam to fight a war for a country where he wasn’t fully free, as a
black man, during a time of segregation, discrimination, and racial unrest
in our country. I think about his life here when he left, and what he
would have encountered back here, had he returned. So Memorial Day is a
day of remembrance, and a day of commitment, to fight for a better world,
a more peaceful world, a more equitable world, and a more just world.
Remembering my uncle’s sacrifice motivates me to build the world I wish
he’d live to see.

Let’s come together this Memorial Day to honor my uncle Michael and all
those that have served by continuing to advocate for our shared values
which will protect our democracy from those that seek to undermine it,
both here at home and abroad.

On behalf of DFA, I wish you a safe Memorial Day.

-Yvette



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