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.”