Babylon Village Mayor's Memorial Day Tribute
If you look up the word "memorial" in the diction.ary, it will say "serving to preserve remembrance - commemorative, relating to memory. And memory by defi.nition refers to things in the past - history. Today is Memorial Day and today we are supposed to remember the men and wom.en who gave the ultimate sac.rifice to defend our Nation and preserve our way of life.

Ebunola McCauley

For the past six years I have had the privilege to speak be.fore you on this subject and each time I have asked you to speak with your children about the real meaning of this day. I have asked you to tell your chil.dren that the reason that we can spend this day with B-B-Qs and parades is because of the many people who came before us and fought for this privilege.

Today, I'm going to ask you for something different. I am dismayed by the fact that many people in our coun.try seem to have forgotten that we are at war. Are we "remembering" on this day of memories that we have young men and women who are fighting right now? Have many of us forgotten that our soldiers need our support and prayers? I want you to think on this Memorial Day what you have done to support our armed forces. What have you done to educate our children about our soldiers who are fighting right now and are not at home with their families? We all need to do as much as possible for our current sol.diers. We should remember those of the past but not forget to support and honor the soldiers of today.

Last year at this time, My wife had written a letter to a local pa.per about one of her students who is a reservist. This year she has a request that she wanted me to relay to you. Several years ago she had a young woman in her class who was in the reserves. Ebunola was bright, hard work.ing and filled with questions and debate. She was proud to be a re.servist and gave a speech in class about how to clean a rifle. A few weeks ago, Ebunola wrote to say that she was leaving for Iraq soon. My wife was very upset and worried. She has asked that you all say a prayer for Ebunola so that she will return home safe.ly. Since we have a voluntary army, many of us are very sepa.rated from the war. Some of you don't know any of the soldiers. So, here is a picture of Ebunola so you can have a connection to a soldier.

I'm asking you to pray for Ebunola and all our young men and women at war; support organizations that help them; speak with your elected officials about helping our troops; and teach your children about the sacrifices that these men and women are making.

Mayor Ralph Scordino

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