Grateful for ultimate sacrifice

To the Journal editor:

With Memorial Day coming up, a time that we’re thankful to those who had served and also those who had paid the “Ultimate Sacrifice” so that we are still a free country, in which we are still able to enjoy our freedom.

I’d like to share what the great actor Joe Mantegna had said in an interview a few years back about Memorial Day. He was asked if it ever got to be repetitive being the host of The National Memorial Day Concert since 2002.

Mr. Mantegna’s response was “it gets better every year, because Memorial Day is the most important holiday that we celebrate in this country, because without this day, we would have no other holidays.”

That short statement from Mr. Mantegna really puts the importance of the sacrifices that were made for all living here in America!

I personally think whoever the speakers are at the cemeteries in the future should add these few lines in … a very powerful thought on this day that usually people take for granted, only thinking that we got a three-day weekend coming.

DAVID KUMPULA

Hoffman Estates, Illinois