Memorial day event in Houston Sunday May 28

I went to this event last year and volunteered to read names of those killed in Iraq for 1 hour while others placed a flag in the ground for each soldier killed. I spent 6 hours there. It was just so hard to leave. I recommend EVERYONE to come by and read a name on who was killed in Iraq, or plant their flag in the ground. It was a great event and a perfect way to honor those who have been killed.

especially the empty children's shoes. We expect to see the flags, but to see all the empty shoes representing just a very minuscule number of the civilian casualties, the numbers we don't see..........

Go see the flags tomorrow, if you can. It's very moving. I took my 12 year old daughter. I didn't really want to go because I have such huge issues with the war and so does she and our day together was supposed to be about a fun time together with friends out at Lake Livingston, but I kept thinking about how I also have issues with the way the media is not showing our children anything at all about the war. I was a child of Viet Nam and it was clear to me every day of my childhood that we were killing people in Viet Nam and dead Americans were coming home in body bags. My own kids have no concept that we are killing Iraqis and that American soldiers are dying daily.

My daughter and I planted flags in the ground for American soldiers that had been killed in the battle at Fallujah, but mostly the soldiers had been killed from roadside bombs.

Here's a story I know about this local soldier:

Pfc. Jesus A. Leon-Perez, 20. Houston, Texas. Died on January 24, 2005.

He was engaged to be married to a girl at Furr High school, an HISD high school on the far east side of town off of I-10 in a very hispanic area. She was making a student film and the topic of hers was about getting married too young. So, the start of her film had interviews with both of their moms where they were talking about how they had come to accept the situation. The film also had sweet moments with the girl and Jesus, how they met and their plans for their future. There was this sort of awful moment where Jesus told her that he hoped she understood that when he went to Iraq that it was very dangerous and there was the chance he wouldn't come back. Watching it, you are thinking, oh no, this is a film about young love, and this is a student film, you can't mean he was killed. Oh, yeah. Cut to his casket. It was just wrenching. I met the girl after the showing of the film and it was just unbelievable what she went through and then her poise to put this very moving film together.

I looked at my daughter tonight and I told her, "I'm still thinking about those flags." And she took my hand and told me, "Bush can't run again, so he'll be gone in two and a half years, momma."