This editorial was written by the Daily Camera.

Monday is Memorial Day, and the best thing anyone can do, says Gulf War veteran Jason Scott Fearing, is to seek out a veteran and start a real, honest, conversation. It could lead to a lifelong friendship, a greater understanding of humanity, or simply and no less importantly allow one veteran to be heard.

Fearing served for 12 years in the U.S. Army, with 30 deployments, including joining hundreds of thousands of American soldiers — his brothers and sisters — during the early 1990s in Operation Desert Shield followed by Operation Desert Storm in the Persian Gulf.

Fearing, who suffers from long- and short-term memory loss, can recall turning 21 years old during boot camp in Ohio, but his days, weeks and hours in combat are not so clearly remembered. Those awful memories – which can be triggered by any loud noise sounding like mortar fire, he says — have manifested as chronic mental health challenges with associated physical pain from a central nervous system disorder. And what he does remember, he doesn’t wish to talk about.

“I stutter, I struggle to remember what I am talking about sometimes and stop, or I might act weird if something smells like burned meat,” he says. “But my sacrifice was worth it to me. I helped people and did a lot of good things like building infrastructure. Remember Baghdad airport?”

Today, at age 50, life is pretty good, Fearing says. He’s got his best friend, a “super pugle” he calls him, a mix of a pug and a beagle named Buddy Boyd. He collects Hot Wheels and shops for food when he isn’t in too much pain or there isn’t too much snow hampering his wheelchair. It was a long road to get here, with a lot of help from others, he says. . . .

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) recalled his service in the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment, known as the Old Guard, while reflecting on the sacrifice of those who died in America’s armed forces ahead of Memorial Day.

Cotton, U.S. Army veteran who served tours in both Afghanistan and Iraq, described the attention to detail involved in the Old Guard’s ceremonial mission of receiving remains of fallen soldiers returned to America and of funerals at Arlington National Cemetery.

“We have rulers that are measured down to 1/64th of an inch, which is the standard for most decorations and badges on an Old Guard soldier’s uniform,” Cotton said on Thursday’s edition of SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Daily with host Alex Marlow.

He continued, “That level of discipline and precision and high standards is a reflection of the care that we have for those fallen heroes, and that if they sacrificed their lives for our nation, then surely we can sacrifice a little comfort, a little time to make sure that everything is perfect for them.” . . .

There’s a serenity about Section 60 at Arlington National Cemetery. It is a peaceful place. It’s where I choose to celebrate Memorial Day. . . . It is where they are at rest. Arlington National Cemetery is where I know too many names etched on the white marble headstones. It is 639 acres of ground sanctified by the blood of our nation’s warriors dating back to the Civil War. This ground, and the hundreds of national cemeteries around the country and overseas, is where millions will pause, remember these men and women and take stock of what they fought so bravely to preserve. . . .

In preparation for the historically violent weekend, the Chicago Police Department canceled days off and put officers on 12-hour shifts while community groups fanned out across the city to draw people out of the line of fire.

Two people have been killed and at least 26 others wounded in shootings across Chicago over Memorial Day weekend.

In preparation for the historically violent weekend, the Chicago Police Department canceled days off and put officers on 12-hour shifts. Meanwhile, community groups fanned out across the city to draw people out of the line of fire.

“This is our city that we love, and there is loss of life, and it should make us weep and roll up our sleeves,” said John Fuder of Chicagoland United in Prayer, whose group is sponsoring prayer marches across the city this weekend. . . .

While reflecting on the purpose of Memorial Day, Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL) told Breitbart News Americans who lost their lives in armed conflicts are “sewn into the fabric of America.”

Mast, a U.S. Army who served in Afghanistan, joined Thursday’s edition of SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Daily with host Alex Marlow ahead of the Memorial Day weekend.

“There’s a really important reason that we go out there and that we take this time out,” Mast said. “We should be doing it every single, day but I always ask people, ‘Ask yourself, how do you make somebody live on that did something worthy of remembering? How do they live on?’ And the way that they do that is to remember what they did.”

He added, “You don’t just remember what they did. You remember why they did it [and] what to them was was worth fighting for, and take Memorial Day as a day to stop and think about that for a few minutes.” . . .

“We were supposed to be revolutionaries. We were for anybody who is kind of in your face. I saw what I had become, lashing out at every single thing. And then I asked God that if you take anger out of my heart I’ll never hate again.” ~ Justice Clarence Thomas

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You cannot live a free life without having your own thoughts. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas makes this poignantly clear. “In my life I had been looking at the wrong people as the people who would be problematic toward me. We were told that, oh, it’s going to be the bigot in the pickup truck, it’s gonna be the klansman, it’s gonna be the rural sheriff. And I’m not saying that there weren’t some of those who were bad. But, it turned out that through all of that ultimately the biggest impediment was the modern day liberal. That they were the ones who would discount all those things because they have one issue or because they have the authority, the power to caricature you.” ~ Justice Clarence Thomas

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