It is a most special day of the American calendar, to remember and honor the courage of the fallen and their equally courageous families.

As an American citizen, I join all my brothers and sisters, Americans by choice or by birth, to celebrate with immense pride, that our beloved America is among the countries of the world with the largest number of soldiers of international wars who gave their lives so others could live with the dignity of life which only comes from freedom.

Lt. Col. John McCrae’s famous poem, “In Flanders Fields” gives us a glimpse of the high price paid by the fallen and carried over for life by their families.

“In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, that mark our place… We are the dead. Short days ago, Love, and were loved, and now we lie…
In Flanders fields.”

May God Almighty bless our veterans of foreign wars and their families and let’s never forget that, today, we live in a free America and a better world, thanks to our veterans’ ultimate sacrifice.

Let us roll up our sleeves and continue their heroic efforts for freedom by working diligently to erase from our beloved America and the whole world, the social cancer of non-acceptance of diversity, which has menaced, and continues to menace, to destroy the American dream of equal human rights for all and has stained the pages of world history with discrimination, holocaust, slavery, cleansing and other atrocities against the sanctity of human life.

In God we trust, that our beloved country of America, the land of the brave, will continue its mission of being a lighthouse of hope for equality of freedom for all, in America as well as the world.

Frank Rivas, MD
Huntington