A Memorial Day reminder from Fort Bragg
A Gold Star father’s words are worth carrying into today's cookout.
ABC11 had a moving story last week from Fort Bragg, where Gold Star families gathered for the Army Special Operations Command’s annual Remembrance Day ceremony.
The quote that stayed with me came from Wendall Pelham, whose son, Spc. John Pelham, was killed in Afghanistan in 2014 while serving with the 3rd Special Forces Group.
“Still go do a hotdog and a hamburger and still drink the beer or drink the wine or drink the water, whatever you want to do,” Pelham said. “Just take a nanosecond or a minute or two and reflect on why we as Americans have an armed services and what we owe them.”
That is not too much to ask.
North Carolina has more than 10,000 names listed in the Gold Star Family Registry. My hometown of Apex has three, including two men who died in Iraq.
You can search your own hometown at GoldStarFamilyRegistry.com. I’d encourage you to do it.
Find a name. Read it. Say a prayer for that family. Then enjoy the cookout with a little more gratitude.
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In the paper
I had two columns run in the newspaper last week.
The first one was a little out of the ordinary for me, but it was a fun one to write. I desperately want North Carolina to land a Major League Baseball team, and Charlotte seems to have no interest in pursuing one. So I call on the city to back Raleigh’s bid instead. Read it here, free with gift link: Charlotte should help Raleigh land Major League Baseball
The second one focused on Charlotte’s surprise vote to cancel the I-77 South toll lane project. It’s the first test of the post-Mayor Vi Lyles era, and it’s not promising for the state’s largest city. Read it here, free with gift link: With I-77 vote, Charlotte is the city its critics have been warning about