Remembering Veterans Day

Excerpt from Naperville Sun

Rotary Hill will be covered with American flags during the week of Veterans Day. From Nov. 8 to 14, the Exchange Club of Naperville will fly 2,009 flags to honor the men and women of the military.
Individuals can present a flag to display and take home or donate to next year's event. It costs $30 to order an American flag, $35 to order a flag with an honor tag. The deadline has been extended to Oct. 30.
Related events on Rotary Hill include a Tag a Flag Ceremony from 12:30 to 3 p.m. Nov. 8 and a Veterans Day Observance at 11 a.m. Nov. 11.

"In memory of Scott Biesterfield U.S.M.C. — Love, Dad"


This is the inscription of a flag dedication that I read today.

Your dad and I visited Rotary Hill in downtown Naperville. It was covered with 2,009 American flags, waving in the wind in neat rows. This was Naperville's Healing Field of Honor in observance of Veterans Day.

The Healing Field program started out as a way to commemorate the lives of those lost to us on September 11, 2001. Since the first Healing Field display in 2002, hundreds of communities across America have hosted a Healing Field or Fields of Honor to raise money and awareness for a growing array of causes.

These special displays of fields of American flags have helped to honor the sacrifice of our service men and women, raise awareness for the tragedy of child abuse or domestic violence, honor veterans past and present, raise awareness for heart disease and cancer and more.

As tears fall uncontrollably, I am thanking God for you. I thank God that you still play Manhunt and tag. I thank God that you are not serving in the military. I thank God that you are safe. Selfish... I know.

As we celebrate Veterans Day, I would like to humbly thank all the Scott Biesterfields there ever were. Those who never came home, those who did, and those who are still out there. I especially want to thank their dads and their moms, their wives, husbands, sisters, brothers, sons and daughters. Thank them all for the sacrifices that they have made and that they still make every day... sacrifices that the rest of us could not even begin to understand.

We stood there among the flags, with only sounds of their flapping in the soft zephyr... and we cried.

Love,
Mom and Dad