Most flights I make are uneventful. Tonight I had one which wasn’t, but then again it was.

I noticed but didn’t notice fully an Army sergeant one row ahead of me, dressed in his dress uniform.

Later in the flight the pilot came on and asked if all passengers would be so kind and respectful to allow this solider to leave the plane first as he was escorting the remains of a solider killed in Iraq back to his final resting place.

You could hear and feel the busy-ness of the plane stop.

My dad was in the Army for 25 years before he retired and started his (second) family (namely my brother and me). I thought of him…and what his reaction would have been if he were sitting next to me on that plane.

I have this big thing about the media FORGETTING the hurricane victims of the Gulf Coast. I was brought face-to-face with my own forgetting about the casualties of human life.

Two of my wife Marlene’s cousins serve(d) in Iraq: Randy S. and Marcus O. Marcus is there now (that’s ice in the photo on the heater below)

and Randy has returned.

I invite you to join me in continuing to pray for peace and for the men and women who serve in the armed forces, as well as their families. I also ask you to pray for the grace to REMEMBER.