Jonathan Meyer.

As I hope you read from the front page or another online article, Memorial Day 2025 has come and gone. Wikipedia describes memorial day as follows: “Memorial Day (originally known as Decoration Day) is a federal holiday in the United States for honoring and mourning the military personnel who had died while serving in the United States Armed Forces.”

Take that high school teachers telling me not to use Wikipedia!

In my own words, I view Memorial Day as an important day of remembrance that Americans take to honor those who have fallen in service to our country. What Memorial Day is NOT is a day off of work to sit at home and do nothing.

I will be completely honest, before this job I had not been to a service on my own for Memorial Day. I don’t think I truly understood the reason we had a holiday, and that’s on me. Being in my third year of covering the event and participating in the different local observations, has changed my perspective on what it means to truly honor those who have made the ultimate sacrifice.

This year Cat Campbell-Currier speaking about her upbringing and the community aspects of the Toledo Legion, her family members in service, and getting to view different memorials for the veterans of our country, was so very touching and brought me back to a bigger systemic issue.

Having both of my grandpa’s serve our country when they were young men is something I take so much pride in. While I never got to hear much about my paternal grandpa’s service before his passing in 2011 from what I have heard, his time overseas was quite eventful and shaped the rest of his life.

My other grandpa who is still with us fortunately, has only talked to me a few times about his service. He was drafted to fight in the Vietnam War and spent time overseas, seeing active combat for a few days. I will never forget the two times he shared his stories with me, once in his basement showing me pictures and the other being on a guys trip with my cousins in Florida. While I will keep those memories between him and I, I am so immensely proud of his service to our country.

Last fall, he was selected to take an honor flight and go see Washington D.C. with my uncle. As a part of that process, I was asked to write him a letter to read on his flight back to Iowa. From the surface level it was a simple task, but reflecting on his time serving our country was a deeply special and emotional process that I will always cherish.

The issue I’m getting and what I would like readers to think about is civic participation. Sure the attendance was up in Tama county this year, but very few families and school kids showed up. The average age of those participating has to be well over 60. With an aging community, we absolutely need young people to step up and take ownership of the good things we have going on. That problem is not just hitting Tama-Toledo, it’s nationwide. Our leaders are old, both in national politics and organizations right here around Tama-Toledo.

Getting off my soapbox, I hope to see more community members step up and celebrate our local veterans and in a broader sense serve our community in more ways. To all those who served our country, thank you. To those who participated in the services around the community, thank you. To those who observed Memorial Day in an appropriate way, thank you.

Until I see you next, I’m Just Jonathan.