Remembering Our Troops Still Matters

Written By: Salena Zito  |  Posted: Tuesday, April 27th, 2010

GETTYSBURG - South of Emmitsburg Road, along the Civil War battlefield here, 20 men gather around a monument to Latham's Battery.
They toil at the simple memorial honoring the North Carolina artillery unit, cleaning cannons and resetting fallen rocks on a low stone wall. Most of the men are Civil War re-enactors and are wearing period uniforms.
"Colonel" Kevin Stone, one of the volunteers, says they gather to do this twice a year. "If we don't do it, " he explains, "who will?"
With few exceptions in our history, we Americans have honored our soldiers, living and dead, past and present.

The nation is in its longest period of continual war now, although it faces a different kind of warfare and a different kind of enemy. The average American has not had to make significant sacrifices this time, unlike most previous wartime generations.

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