In honor of Memorial Day, Pampa VFW Post 1657 invited a special guest to come speak at their event. Colonel Michael Foote, born and raised in Pampa, returned to his hometown to speak at the VFW’s Memorial Day Event.
“It’s always great to come back home,” Foote said. “When you look into the crowd and see your 2nd-grade teacher, your high school history teachers, and family friends, it’s always fun to get back into that.”
Foote, who is currently the Garrison Commander in Fort Riley, KS, is a 1994 graduate of Pampa High School. Foote participated in football, wrestling, and student council for all four years of his high school career. He earned his Eagle Scout in Boy Scout Troop 414 and was active in the First United Methodist Church youth group and the local Optimist League sports. Upon graduation, Foote was awarded an Army ROTC scholarship to the University of Oklahoma where he earned a degree in Health and Exercise Science and was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant of Field Artillery in the US Army. In 2021, Foote was inducted into the Harvester Hall of Fame.
Foote expressed his appreciation for being invited to speak at the VFW’s Memorial Day event.
“I want to thank John Tripplehorn and VFW Post 1657 for the honor of inviting me back and letting me speak,” Foote said. “Post 1657 is my post, I am a member of it. It was great to be back and have the opportunity to give a speech.”
Foote’s speech is as follows:
In the spring of 1865, near the small town of Appomattox Court House, Virginia, the US Civil War came to an end. Two war-weary commanders met in the parlor room of a local civilian’s home after years of war that had left our great nation in shambles.
Following the non-descript ceremony of his acceptance of the surrender of General Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia, General Ulysses S. Grant walked outside, quieted a celebrating Union band, and solemnly told his officers and men, “The war is over. The Rebels are our countrymen again.”
General Grant’s simple comment highlighted the need to begin healing across a broken nation. One of the primary means to begin that healing was the establishment of our country’s first national cemeteries.
In the years immediately following the Civil War, Americans began to hold memorial celebrations and tributes to the countless fallen soldiers at these national cemeteries. In May of 1868, General John A. Logan brought forth the idea of a nationwide day of remembrance, or “Decoration Day.”
General Logan proclaimed, “The 30th of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers, or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village and hamlet churchyard in the land.”
The date was chosen because it wasn’t the anniversary of any particular single battle and therefore, created the opportunity to remember all of the fallen and the sacrifices they made throughout the entire war.
World War 1 brought sacrifice and loss for the cause of Freedom to the people of the United States in a painful and significant way. This resulted in Decoration Day becoming known as Memorial Day and evolving from the remembrance of Civil War dead into the commemoration of ALL US military personnel who gave their life in war.
So how should we, the benefactors of this sacrifice, “observe” this day of remembrance? I personally think we only have to look at the guidelines that tell us how to properly display the flag….”On Memorial Day the flag should be flown at half-staff from sunrise until noon only, then raised briskly to the top of the staff until sunset, in honor of the nation’s battle heroes.
These instructions split the day into two parts: a morning of remembrance, and the afternoon of honor. Let’s walk through this day together on a compressed timeline…I’ll go slow in case we have any Marines here today!
The sun rises and the flag is briskly raised to the top of the staff. It is then lowered slowly to the half-staff position. This is done in REMEMBRANCE…
Remembrance of ALL military personnel who have paid the ultimate sacrifice in the name of Freedom.
There are some things today that don’t matter: The War, The Place, The way they died…those don’t matter. Every fallen Soldier, Sailor, Airman, and Marine from Lexington and Concord in 1775 to Syria today, should be remembered on Memorial Day.
Each of these Americans stood before us or beside us and said, “I will give my life for you.”
Think about that statement. “I will give my life for you.”
That is a HEAVY vow; not one to be taken lightly. But we need to remember; the fallen are not the only ones who gave that vow….there are many here among us today who LIVED that vow, but today is not our day.
That heavy, but simple vow is one that makes our nation so great. “I will give my life for you.” So let us take a hard moment to remember those who gave their life…for us.
This may hurt, but it is important…
Think about that friend or Soldier you lost.
Maybe you were there or maybe you just got the bad news.
You probably call them a “Hero,” but they would resist that title.
Think about the good times you spent together.
Think about the deployments or tours.
Think about their family: wives or husbands, sons and daughters.
Remember the pain of the loss.
Now think about the others: The thousands of others who gave their lives for the exact same reason…Freedom.
Sometimes, those we lost haunt us at night…I know they haunt me.
They are always with me…both the good and the bad…sometimes it’s my friend Jared showing up at a most inopportune time with four pitchers of beer in his hands yelling, “I thought we could use a little pick me up!”
Sometimes it is the ones I just couldn’t save. As bad as it can hurt, we owe it to them ALL to consciously state:
YOU ARE NOT FORGOTTEN.
YOU ARE ALWAYS WITH ME.
YOU WILL NEVER BE FORGOTTEN.
I would be remiss if I did not mention our Gold Star Families. Our Gold Star Families are one of our Nation’s most sacred treasures. They are the ones who feel these sacrifices more than any other.
If you know a Gold Star Family, please care for them…even if that is nothing more than a phone call or a hug. As our morning of remembrance comes to an end, I want to share a letter that was sent to thousands of wives and mothers during World War II. This letter was shared with me by a fellow officer. His Grandmother received it as a young, 18-year-old newlywed with a brand-new baby girl. A child who would never know her father…a 19-year-old Marine who was killed in action on the island of Iwo Jima.
IN GRATEFUL MEMORY OF RALPH J. BRADY WHO DIED IN THE SERVICE OF HIS COUNTRY AT IWO JIMA, VOLCANO ISLANDS, 19 FEBRUARY 1945 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.
--Signed FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
…and just like that, it is noon…and our beautiful stars and stripes briskly rise to the top of the staff signaling our shift from remembrance to honor.
We HONOR them in thought and in deed.
We HONOR them by walking in the burden of their sacrifice because they HOLD our Freedoms.
At the end of the great WW2 movie “Saving Private Ryan,” the last of the US Rangers sent on a mission to ensure Private Ryan lives to return to his mother looks Ryan in the eye and expends his last breath with a single, simple order for Ryan: “Earn this. Earn it.”
It is my belief that simple phrase, “Earn it,” is exactly what every American Military Man and Woman who has ever given their life in defense of this Great Nation would ask of each of us: “Earn this…Honor me by living in the Freedom that comes at the cost of my life.”
Honor them by remembering they would not want your pity. While we remain on this earth missing and mourning our comrades, we must remember the vow they took and that they answered the call of their own accord. I cannot capture this sentiment in any comparison to the words spoken by the son of a US service member killed in Afghanistan in 2017: “His life was not taken, it was given, to his country.”
Honor them in how you live.
