Don’t celebrate tragedies

I hear announcers mentioning “celebrating” days like Pearl Harbor or D-Day. This makes me sad. The

horrendous loss of life during these military actions makes them something to commemorate or

remember, not celebrate.

They should not be celebrated like a birthday or anniversary. We can celebrate the survivors but not

the actions themselves. Veterans do not celebrate military actions; they celebrate the fact that they

survived. The Japanese do not celebrate Hiroshima or Nagasaki; they commemorate them and honor

the victims.

I honor the veterans and their dependents of all military actions. I certainly do not celebrate the losses.

I feel the tears and sometimes the anger of those left behind. We should be grateful for those who

served and those who supported them.

I am both a veteran and a wife who was left to hold down the fort as her husband served. I do not celebrate tragic circumstances, but revere those who participated and persevered.

June Hildebrand

Spokane Valley