This this morning I had an opportunity to go to Memorial Day service at a cemetery near us and they do such a beautiful job. They have a military flyover and um it was a little smaller this year because of the government lockdowns uh in the community which by the way I thought was I I really disliked that.

I think of the men and women who served in our country during the Revolutionary War and World War I and World War II and other wars. Men and women who actually went to go out and risk their lives not just with a virus, not just with getting sick. In fact, some of them intentionally went to go get smallpox so that they could be immune to the virus prior to fighting the enemy because the enemy had already acquired immunity.

And they already knew that a big percentage of them would end up dying because of that. But they did it anyway because they understood that freedom was more precious than their life. And that’s what we celebrate on Memorial Day. And so to restrict the number of people that could come to today’s Memorial Day service, I thought was uh disrespectful to the men and women around uh this country who died to preserve the freedoms and the liberties that we had today.

But nevertheless, there were a lot of people who came and it was a beautiful service and I’m so thankful to those who put it on and who volunteered to make it so special for us today. And uh made me think of my grandfather. I’ve I’ve mentioned to him to you before, but I want to honor him today because my grandpa Frank Balsmith was a hero to me and to so many people.

I want to show you a couple of pictures of my grandpa Frank. Here he is right here. So there’s my grandpa Frank. He was 17 years old and he enlisted in the Navy as a corman. That’s one of the the medics and he worked together with the Marines and he was a medic on the front lines patching up the wounded soldiers and he fought in World War II.

Grandpa Frank was on the island of Ewima and I’m going to show you a picture of that island right here. Here he is. This is that famous picture of the men and and uh all of the soldiers and the medics and the nurses and and those who were there on that island raising that flag. And my grandpa was there. Can you believe that? My grandpa was there.

And here he is with some of his buddies and they brought over uh dogs, puppies to cheer them up and to lift their spirits during these difficult difficult days when he was landing on Saipan and Tinian and Ewima. Got some more pictures I wanted to show you. Here’s my grandpa. He was in the fourth Marine Division.

And uh there he is. And here he is getting his his badge put on here by his uh superior. He was 17 years old. And all he wanted to do was to get home to be with my grandmother. And uh he called her his best girl. And he wrote her letters. In fact, I’ve got a I’ve got one of his letters right here that I’d like to show you. Here it is.