Mark WiedmerHeather and Jason Quarles and their three children will celebrate Memorial Day today like most Americans.
Yard work is on tap this morning. The afternoon will likely find them at his dad's home in Rossville, where they'll fire up the grill with extended family and friends for a traditional feast of hamburgers and hot dogs. A fireworks show might end their holiday fun.
But there were more serious issues to address Sunday. There was a lesson to teach the Quarles children about the cost of freedom in these perilous times.
So the U.S. Army veterans drove 16-year-old Andrew, 14-year-old Alexis and 10-year-old Elizabeth to the corner of Highway 153 and Lee Highway, to the spot where the worst day in Chattanooga history unfolded on July 16, 2015, to where the Fallen Five servicemen murdered by a sicko terrorist's misplaced rage are forever memorialized in bronze and stone.
"They haven't been here before," Heather said. "We wanted to teach them about service to country."
So they all read the plaques honoring the victims of the shooting at the U.S. Marine and Naval Reserve Center: Marine Sergeant Carson A. Holmquist, Navy Logistics Specialist Second Class Randall Smith, Marine Gunnery Sergeant Thomas J. Sullivan, Marine Lance Corporal Squire K. "Skip" Wells and Marine Staff Sergeant David A. Wyatt.
Then they placed stars-and-stripes ribbons on the memorial. They stood silently for a moment, a thoughtful prayer for five heroes too soon lost.
"It just shows you," said Jason, "that even in this small town of Chattanooga we still have people who can go off the deep end."
Heather and Jason have been retired from the military since 1999. He now works for Arrow Exterminators. She classifies herself as a stay-at-home mom who home-schools their children, though that ignores the not-so-little fact that she also works 28 hours a week on the third shift at Food City.
"But being a mom is my real job," she said.
They are, in most ways, the quintessential American family in 2016. Struggling to make a little stretch a lot, concerned that their children's future will be more turbulent on all fronts than their present.
"This affects me deeply," Heather said as she glanced back at the memorial. "It makes my heart swell up, and I want to bawl."
We all felt that way 319 days ago today. Our hearts were filled with pain and rage, our eyes wouldn't stop watering, our minds wondered how such a thing could possibly happen in our city that was seemingly safe from terrorism.
But it did. And were it not for men and women such as Jason and Heather Quarles - good folks who followed their own parents into military service - it might happen far more often than it has.
"They were targeted because of their jobs," Jason said with chilling simplicity. "Nothing more."
He then recalled his own time in the military, which came to an end before the 9/11 attacks.
"Even then, we were told not to fly in uniform," he said, "because there were people out there, our own citizens, who hated the military."
Heather knew nothing but the armed forces life. A military brat who calls West Virginia home, her mother served nine years in the same Air Force her father made a career of. She still has a cousin serving in Iraq.
Then there's Jason, who grew up in Rossville, spent a tour of duty in Korea, then wound up stationed with Heather not three hours from Chattanooga at Fort Campbell on the Tennessee-Kentucky border.
"Serving this country has always been important to our families," Heather said.
Yet even as the Quarles children thoughtfully studied the 7/16 memorial, one wondered how much the majority of Americans truly value the sacrifices of our military families. For even as Heather and Jason came to honor our Fallen Five - as well as injured Marine DeMonte Cheeley and Chattanooga policeman Dennis Pedigo - an idiot in Henderson, Ky., was being investigated for apparently driving his car over more than 160 white crosses placed in the ground as part of a Memorial Day tribute to the more than 5,000 military veterans from Henderson who have served their country since the start of the Revolutionary War.
"It has really upset the entire community," Jennifer Richmond, a spokeswoman for the Henderson police department, told the Associated Press. "This is something you don't do. This is a form of desecration. These people served their country, and then someone disrespected their memory in this way and it's just totally unacceptable."
We accept a lot these days in the name of personal freedom while neglecting to appreciate the human cost of protecting that freedom. But we can reverse a bit of that today.
We can thank - through silent prayer or loud speech - all those dedicated souls whose sacrifices made it possible for 350,000 people to crowd into Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Sunday to watch the 100th running of the Indy 500 without fear of enemy attack. Or attend Sunday night's Chattanooga Lookouts game. Or enjoy today's numerous barbecues and tributes. Or place a flag on a grave at Chattanooga National Cemetery.
"I just wanted to come out and thank them for keeping us safe," Alexis Quarles said of her visit to the 7/16 memorial.
Added younger sister Elizabeth, "We should thank them because they died for us."
And from ultimate sacrifices such as those do grown men and women in this country who truly understand the cost of freedom begin to feel their hearts swell up and their souls want to bawl.
Especially today in our Scenic City, the worst day of its history but 319 days old.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com.