President's Day came about with the combining of George Washington's
birthday with Abraham Lincoln's birthday. Here at Dow Rummel Village, we are
marking this President's Day with a special flag-raising ceremony, honoring
those who have made tremendous sacrifices to preserve our freedoms.
It is fitting that we came across the following, courtesy of South Dakota's
own Tom Brokaw and the "Wall Street Journal" from June 2009 on the
anniversary of D-Day.

When asked how I came to write "The Greatest Generation," I recount
a trip to Normandy in 1984. I went there to produce a documentary on the
40th anniversary of D-Day. I had looked forward to a week of stirring
stories, evenings of oysters and Calvados, and long runs through the
countryside.
Instead, from the moment I stepped onto Omaha Beach with two
veterans of the First Division I had an out-of-body experience. Geno
Merli, who earned the Medal of Honor, and Harry Garton, who lost both legs
in combat, landed in the first wave at Omaha. Working-class products from
Pennsylvania, they were soft-spoken and matter-of-fact as they described
for me the horrors of that day and all the fighting that was yet to come.
Listening to them I was transported back to my childhood in the
Great Plains during the '40s and '50s. In the heartland, men like Geno and
Harry were always on call to help a neighbor overhaul a car, build a fence,
sponsor a baseball team or Boy Scout troop.
Along with their wives they were always volunteering, organizing
potluck suppers and bake sales to support community projects. They
knew the price of every piece of produce and every cut of meat in the local
supermarket. And most families I knew had war bonds tucked away to go
with the savings account at the hometown bank.
As I began to write the wartime accounts of that generation, I
realized how much they were formed by the deprivations and lessons of
the Great Depression. During that period life was about common sacrifice and
going without the most ordinary items, such as enough food or new clothes.
So many veterans told me they got their first new pairs of shoes and
boots when they enlisted. When I recently interviewed Walt Ehlers -- a
poor Kansas farm boy who received the Medal of Honor for his heroism at
Normandy -- he lit up when he described the breakfasts during basic
training. "Every kind of cereal you could imagine!" he said. "And
pancakes and bacon and eggs."
As for basic training, he said putting up hay on his uncle's farm in
August was much tougher.
If you look at the old black-and- white photographs of the physicals
conducted during induction, there's no obesity in that crowd of young men.
In fact, some look malnourished.
These are the same young Americans who went thousands of miles
across the Atlantic and thousands of miles across the Pacific and
defeated the mightiest military empires ever unleashed against us. Their
sacrifices at home and on the frontlines make our current difficulties
look like a walk on the beach in comparison.
The surviving members of that generation -- now in their 80s and 90s
-- are living reminders of the good that can come from hard times. They
can teach us that if we're to get through this time of crisis a better
nation with a fundamentally stronger economy, we'd better learn how to
work together and organize our lives around what we need - - not just
what we want.
By Tom Brokaw, Wall Street Journal, June 2009