I’ve been what some people call a “history buff.” For many years the history teacher at my home school was Mildred Mullins. She was a strict teacher with her pop tests and memorizing historical speeches, but she made sure I learned what was taught. She also found a way to make it interesting. Later in my life researching and writing about local history became a part of my job. I created books about the history of my hometown and my family’s history.

Thankfully my husband is interested in history. Whenever and where ever we travel, we manage to visit historical museums, battlefields and historical sites. A tour bus trip to Washington, D.C. was a thrill for us as we visited meaningful places and monuments such as the Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, Vietnam War Wall, Iwo Jima Battle Memorial and WWII Memorial. We visited the Martin Luther King Memorial, the boyhood home of former President Reagan, Custer’s Battlefield at the Little Bighorn, the boyhood of Mark Twain. In Kansas City we viewed the WWI memorial and museum. We visited Civil War battlefields. The most memorial ones viewed were Gettysburg and Vicksburg where statues represented leaders and soldiers from the north and south showing the exact battle lines. All are there not just to honor them but to learn from the history of this grand country. We learn from mistakes made in the past so hopefully those mistakes won’t be made again, and we learn to respect those who gave so much of themselves for our freedom.

We shouldn’t erase history and we can’t hide from our history. We need to learn from the history of this country and not destroy it. Winston Churchill stated, “A nation that forgets its past has no future.”