In today’s world, it’s easy to forget that we are a part of something bigger than a family, a workplace, and whatever social media universe we belong to.
So more often than not, many of us click the “like” button when we see a motivational quote or inspirational story — perhaps we even “share” it with our Facebook friends — to satisfy our sense of duty to making the bigger world a better place.
And it’s nobody’s fault that we, more so than we did before this age of technology, find ourselves longing to feel the sense of community we had not too long ago.
Memorial Day gives us a chance to rekindle that spirit.
But first, we have to pull ourselves away from our cellphones and remember.
Sure, most of us who call Wayne County home thrive on the sound of jet noise — and pride ourselves on being hosts to one of the most prolific fighter wings on the planet. We recognize that there are thousands of veterans who live among us.
So when we mark holidays meant to honor the service and sacrifice of those who have worn — and still wear — the uniform, we do so knowing that we salute those brave men and women every day. And we hit the “like” button when we see photographs of Boy Scouts planting flags at graves. We might even attend a Veterans Day parade.
But living in Wayne also brings with it a responsibility to remember what this community has sacrificed in the name of the freedoms we enjoy — to reflect, not just on the service of those still deploying to locations across the world and preparing for future fights, but on the lives lost in defense of the same flag our current generation of heroes salute at home and abroad.
We should remember that this July will mark the tenth anniversary of the deaths of Air Force Captains Thomas Gramith and Mark McDowell — a Seymour Johnson Air Force Base aircrew that perished when their F-15E Strike Eagle crashed in Afghanistan.
We should note that June 7 marks 50 years since a Goldsboro native, 15-year-old Marine Private First Class Dan Bullock, became the youngest American serviceman killed in action in Vietnam.
We should talk to our children about men like Leslie Williams, the former coach of the Rosewood Little Eagles football team, who died in Afghanistan in 2011.
The names Lt. Col. William Watkins and Capt. Eric Das should mean something to each of us.
And we should remember that the loss of these heroes meant much more than another military casualty. It meant that our community had been stripped of irreplaceable people — that our nation had lost some of the finest to ever defend her.
It’s hard sometimes navigating this new age — when meaningful stories that, in the past, stayed with us for weeks, now fade away as soon as the next headline or tweet pops up on our screen. It can become overwhelming to the point where we have no real ability to fully process the stories of those people and events that define our little slice of North Carolina.
But we do have an opportunity to change course.
We can begin — right here, today — to reclaim the sense of community that has always defined this place.
We can take a few minutes to share stories with our children who, if they are anything like mine, would be happy to, instead, spend all summer playing online with their friends.
We can Google names like Bullock, Gramith, McDowell, Williams, Watkins, and Das so we never forget just how fortunate we were to have them in our lives.
We can sign up for the PTA, attend City Council and School Board meetings, engage with our local representatives, and knock on a new neighbor’s door.
That is how we can make this community — this world — a better place. The type of place irreplaceable men and women have given their lives to defend.
