When I was a lad of five, it was 1942; the beginning of the United States heavy participation in WWII. Shortly after Pearl Harbor, images like the one above, began to appear discretely in windows in my neighborhood. I asked Mom and Dad what they meant and they told me, in respectful wispers, that the families who displayed the emblem had lost a son or a daughter in the fighting.

In 1943 I noticed more and more of these emblems and some of them had two stars and three stars denoting multiple family members, usually sons, lost their lives. I always looked upon this display with reverence and wondered what the families must be going through, and how they felt about losing a loved one. It must be terrible, I thought, I couldn’t stand it if I lost my cousin Evald or cousin Denny; both of whom, at the time, were fighting in the Pacific. They were both childhood heros to mine, who greatfully came home alive.

My family and I were so happy on September 2, 1945 when General McArthur, marched the Japanese Dignitaries to a table, aboard the USS Missouri, in Tokyo Bay and made them sign the unconditional surrender marking the end of WWII. My Mother took us to downtown Redwood City, CA, in our old Chevy, where we liberated one of the US Flags from a sidewalk pole and drove around the town screaming, cheering and yelling that the war was over. The senseless dieing was done.

A Gold Star Family is as sacred as the Alamo, Gettysgurg, Arlington Cemetery, The Vietnam Wall and every war memorial you can name. It is not to be defamed and it is not to be ridiculed or defiled (spoken ill of). Be very careful, anyone who does, it could be your undoing.