EDITORIAL: Make time to honor slain heroes

Monday marks one of our more solemn holidays when we observe Memorial Day.

It’s a special day set aside to honor those who have fallen in service to our country and in defense of our freedom.

Memorial Day also is an unofficial start to summer activities. Those of you lucky enough to have the day off should take a moment during your holiday fun to remember those who paid the ultimate sacrifice for their nation.

Memorial Day (or its predecessor Decoration Day) has a long history stretching back to the Civil War.

Consider these numbers from USA Today:

Roughly 620,000 Americans died in the Civil War — making it the deadliest war in American history. About 644,000 Americans have died in all other conflicts combined.

All those men and women deserve to be remembered on Monday.

A double opportunity to honor our Vietnam vets

The Vietnam War, for better or for worse, has shaped our nation in many ways for the last 50 years.

On this Memorial Day weekend, it is important to remember the 58,253 members of the U.S. armed forces who were killed in that lengthy conflict.

But it is also important to remember everyone who answered the call of their nation’s leaders and put on uniforms to fight the amorphous enemy of communism and the determined soldiers of the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese army.

Many Americans did not support the war. As a result of protests and demonstrations against the war, the nation became deeply divided and our service men and women were often despised, vilified and forgotten. The survivors suffered terribly. Today, they continue to suffer from the nation’s failure to fulfill its promise of quality health care through the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Next week, more than 100 of these heroes will be honored locally. Rep. Ryan Zinke, himself a decorated Navy SEAL, will be at Flathead Valley Community College to award service pins to Vietnam veterans or their surviving family members as part of a nationwide effort to commemorate the sacrifices of those who fought in Vietnam.

The ceremony will be held at 9 a.m. on Thursday in the Arts and Technology Building. Please consider attending to honor these great Americans.