Everyone is gone now. Richard, Sara and Ephraim packed up and headed west a couple of hours ago. My mother-in-law is about to head back to her place in Bentonville. Lynda is in bed with a stomach flue. The kids brought it from Oklahoma City and we have all had it in succession (except me; my time may yet be coming). That put the damper on weekend activities, as did the rain. But we weren’t planning on cooking outside, so all it did was keep us from taking walks.

Yesterday I was called on to teach life group since my co-teacher was called in to work. I also had to start of the class with announcements, prayer requests and praises, etc. One of the things we normally try to do is have something humorous prepared to read. When Marion did this I called it “Marion’s words of wisdom.” Now that I generally do it I call it “Totally useless information.”

Yesterday, however, I gave them some statistics that were not useless, and in fact were quite important. Here they are.

American Revolution…25,324

War of 1812………………..2,260

Mexican War…………….13,283

Civil War…………………498,332

Spanish American War..3,289

World War 1…………….116,708

World War 2……………407,316

Korean War………………54,246

Vietnam War…………….58,159

Persian Gulf War……………200

Afghanistan War…………..610 and counting

Iraq War…………………..3,915 and counting

All statistics are approximate, based on the best sources I could find.

We remember the sacrifice.

And to those families who are represented by these statistics, we thank you for your gift to the nation.