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Keller @ Large: Remember True Meaning Of Memorial Day

BOSTON (CBS) - It's finally here, the Memorial Day weekend. And with summer-like temperatures in the forecast, most of us will take the opportunity to celebrate by firing up the grill, hitting the beach and so on.

But maybe we can also find a moment to honor the true meaning of Memorial Day by visiting an event like the annual garden of flags planted on Boston Common by the group Massachusetts Military Heroes. Each year at this time, they plant 37,000 flags on the Boston Common, one for each of the service men and women from Massachusetts who've given their lives for their country.

If you've never been, it's quite a sight.

Boston Common flags
May 26, 2016 - Volunteers planted 37,000 flags on Boston Common for Memorial Day weekend. (Photo credit: Carl Stevens - WBZ NewsRadio 1030)

It brings home the scale of war's cost, and the enormity of the sacrifices our fellow Americans have made.

And the people that come to see it and pay their respects are themselves a moving panorama - aging vets who made it through but can never forget, those who never served but honor those who did, wide-eyed kids being exposed to the idea that the flag is more than a symbol of something abstract.

Boston Common memorial day flags
David Ouellette and his four-year old daughter, Sloane. His brother, Brian, a Navy seal, was killed in Afghanistan in 2004. (Photo credit: Carl Stevens - WBZ NewsRadio 1030)

War and our involvement in it is always controversial, as it should be. But 9/11 reminded multiple generations, as did Pearl Harbor before it, that sometimes the only alternative to fighting back is to live in fear. And there's a reason why freedom from fear is regarded as a fundamental human right.

In recent years, attendance at Memorial Day parades and observances has dwindled, as some of us forget the meaning of the day our debt to those it honors.

Perhaps Memorial Day 2016 will be the start of a reversal of that troubling trend.

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