Letter to the Editor:

Respecting and honoring those who fight for freedom

Dear Editor:
My brother, 2nd Lieutenant Junior L. Birdsong, died in a plane crash while on a routine training flight on Oct. 4, 1944.
He was preparing for combat overseas to defend our freedoms, alongside his comrades who were fighting and dying for our freedoms. His body was buried in the Rose Hill Cemetery.
When my daughter visited his gravesite in December to put out new flowers, she discovered that someone had taken the foot marker, which our federal government had provided, as they do for all servicemen and veterans.
Also, they had damaged the picture which my father and mother had lovingly paid the monument company to attach to the headstone.
It saddens me that the person or persons, who enjoy the freedoms which our service men were willing to fight and die for, have chosen to desecrate their gravesites.
Are there others who have experience this? It is like reliving the loss and sadness of the day when we received that dreaded telegram.
Lovelene (Birdsong) Taft