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Remarks at a Memorial Day Ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery

Today is the day we put aside to remember fallen heroes and to pray that no heroes will ever have to die for us again. It's a day of thanks for the valor of others, a day to remember the splendor of America and those of her children who rest in this cemetery and others. It's a day to be with the family and remember.
I was thinking this morning that across the country children and their parents will be going to the town parade and the young ones will sit on the sidewalks and wave their flags as the band goes by. Later, maybe, they'll have a cookout or a day at the beach. And that's good, because today is a day to be with the family and to remember.
Arlington, this place of so many memories, is a fitting place for some remembering. So many wonderful men and women rest here, men and women who led colorful, vivid, and passionate lives. There are the greats of the military: Bull Halsey and the Admirals Leahy, father and son; Black Jack Pershing; and the GI's general, Omar Bradley. Great men all, military men. But there are others here known for other things.
Here in Arlington rests a sharecropper's son who became a hero to a lonely people. Joe Louis came from nowhere, but he knew how to fight. And he galvanized a nation in the days after Pearl Harbor when he put on the uniform of his country and said, "I know we'll win because we're on God's side." Audie Murphy is here, Audie Murphy of the wild, wild courage. For what else would you call it when a man bounds to the top of a disabled tank, stops an enemy advance, saves lives, and rallies his men, and all of it single-handedly. When he radioed for artillery support and was asked how close the enemy was to his position, he said, "Wait a minute and I'll let you speak to them." [Laughter]
Michael Smith is here, and Dick Scobee, both of the space shuttle Challenger. Their courage wasn't wild, but thoughtful, the mature and measured courage of career professionals who took prudent risks for great reward—in their case, to advance the sum total of knowledge in the world. They're only the latest to rest here; they join other great explorers with names like Grissom and Chaffee.
Oliver Wendell Holmes is here, the great jurist and fighter for the right. A poet searching for an image of true majesty could not rest until he seized on "Holmes dissenting in a sordid age." Young Holmes served in the Civil War. He might have been thinking of the crosses and stars of Arlington when he wrote: "At the grave of a hero we end, not with sorrow at the inevitable loss, but with the contagion of his courage; and with a kind of desperate joy we go back to the fight."
All of these men were different, but they shared this in common: They loved America very much. There was nothing they wouldn't do for her. And they loved with the sureness of the young. It's hard not to think of the young in a place like this, for it's the young who do the fighting and dying when a peace fails and a war begins. Not far from here is the statue of the three servicemen—the three fighting boys of Vietnam. It, too, has majesty and more. Perhaps you've seen it—three rough boys walking together, looking ahead with a steady gaze. There's something wounded about them, a kind of resigned toughness. But there's an unexpected tenderness, too. At first you don't really notice, but then you see it. The three are touching each other, as if they're supporting each other, helping each other on.
I know that many veterans of Vietnam will gather today, some of them perhaps by the wall. And they're still helping each other on. They were quite a group, the boys of Vietnam—boys who fought a terrible and vicious war without enough support from home, boys who were dodging bullets while we debated the efficacy of the battle. It was often our poor who fought in that war; it was the unpampered boys of the working class who picked up the rifles and went on the march. They learned not to rely on us; they learned to rely on each other. And they were special in another way: They chose to be faithful. They chose to reject the fashionable skepticism of their time. They chose to believe and answer the call of duty. They had the wild, wild courage of youth. They seized certainty from the heart of an ambivalent age; they stood for something.
And we owe them something, those boys. We owe them first a promise: That just as they did not forget their missing comrades, neither, ever, will we. And there are other promises. We must always remember that peace is a fragile thing that needs constant vigilance. We owe them a promise to look at the world with a steady gaze and, perhaps, a resigned toughness, knowing that we have adversaries in the world and challenges and the only way to meet them and maintain the peace is by staying strong.
That, of course, is the lesson of this century, a lesson learned in the Sudetenland, in Poland, in Hungary, in Czechoslovakia, in Cambodia. If we really care about peace, we must stay strong. If we really care about peace, we must, through our strength, demonstrate our unwillingness to accept an ending of the peace. We must be strong enough to create peace where it does not exist and strong enough to protect it where it does. That's the lesson of this century and, I think, of this day. And that's all I wanted to say. The rest of my contribution is to leave this great place to its peace, a peace it has earned.
Thank all of you, and God bless you, and have a day full of memories.
- President Ronald Reagan, May 26, 1986

Prince George's council budget passes $4.1 billion budget

(Click on the image for John McNamara's report)

• Improving public safety was another of Baker’s priorities from the start. The FY 2019 budget also supports five new recruitment classes of 25 police officers (125 total) to offset attrition and increase the number of sworn officers on the force. In Baker’s budget, another 60 officers will be added to the county’s Fire/EMS Department ranks.
• The newly-adopted spending plan also restores previous funding cuts to the Department of Public Works and Transportation budget to support road and sidewalk repair, improvement of county maintenance of medians, and trimming street trees. The department’s budget was increased 4.8 percent this year, to $13.6 million.

Sixth Generation at Miller Farms

Brad Miller tends to some produce at Miller Farms, a 267-acre operation that sits a

short drive from the nation’s capital.  (Photo by Edwin Remsberg)

• Just 12 miles from the heart of Washington in Maryland’s Prince George’s County, Miller Farms adheres to its rural roots, while feeding the city that has sprung up around it.
• Occupying 267 acres, the farm has been family owned and operated since 1879.
• Spanning multiple generations, multiple family members, and multiple businesses on the same tract of land, something is always happening at Miller Farms.
• Buyers for the farm’s produce include not only the home farm market customers and customers from the busy D.C farmers’ market, but also wholesale buyers such as Giant Food, Harris Teeter, Produce Source Distributors, Coastal Sunbelt, and the Capital Area Food Bank.
• At 30, Brad Miller is part of the sixth generation of Millers that has stepped up to take the reins in the family business.
• When asked about his son, Brad’s father, Phil Miller, said “He’s grown up real fast, or at least it seems like that to me.
• Read the full article in The Delmarva Farmer here.

Traffic Safety Slogan Contest

Friendly, Oxon Hill, and Gwyn Park High School students are eligible to participate in our contest to encourage safe driving.
Winning slogans will appear on the MD 210 variable message signs!
The deadline is June 1st so don't delay.
Email entries and questions to 210safetyproject@gmail.com

Don’t wait until ‘Mosquito Week’ to stop those skeeters

(Click on the image for Mike McGrath's WTOP report)

• The first female mosquitoes of the season are biting now and then laying eggs that will hatch in around 10 days. So if you wait until the end of June to take action, you’ll be getting bitten by the great-granddaughters of the first mosquito that got you.
• Clean your gutters! They are the single biggest unseen breeding source for your local mosquito population.
• BTI is a naturally occurring soil organism with a unique property. Applied to standing water in dunk, briquette or granular form, BTI prevents mosquito eggs from developing into biting adults.
• And, unlike chemical larvicides, BTI does not affect any other life form. Birds can drink BTI-treated water. You dog can — and will — drink it. Frogs and toads can live in it. The only thing that BTI does to water is prevent mosquitoes from growing up in it. How cool is that?
• The Mosquito Control Section [of the Maryland Department of Agriculture] provides a direct service to approximately 2,100 communities [including Tantallon] in 16 Maryland counties. The primary goal of this program is to prevent the occurrence of mosquito-borne disease in humans, pets and livestock. Read their brief on mosquito control here.
• From that brief: "Applications ideally are made when wind velocity is 2 to 10 mph, temperature is 60 to 85 degrees, relative humidity is high and a temperature inversion exists. All applications are made at night, when these conditions usually exist and when most mosquito species are active. Night time application also protects pollinators that are active during the day." Tantallon is scheduled to be sprayed on Mondays.

Local Business Support of National Night Out

Tired of drivers speeding down your street? Here’s how to get increased patrols

(Click on the image for  Kristi King's WTOP report)

• If you’re concerned about speeding in your neighborhood, contact your district station to ask for increased patrols or speed enforcement.
• “Those requests are read to officers in that police district during roll call and they are expected to drive through those locations whenever possible throughout their shift,” Pfeiff said. “Our community members know what is going on in their neighborhoods where drivers often speed or miss stop signs or cross walks.”
• “We just always ask you to be aware of your surroundings and be aware of your speed,” Pfeiff said. “And just keep the safety of others in your mind as you’re driving through the county.”
• At the May 15 meeting of the District VII Citizens Advisory Council (CAC), a resident thanked Commander Jim Keleti for his quick response to the community's complaint about speeding in a residential area.
• Call the non-emergency number, 301-352-1200, contact our COPS Officer, Cpl. Rannacher, sdrannacher@co.pg.md.us, 240-507-8110 (cell) or contact Major Keleti, jskeleti@co.pg.md.us, 301-292-5300 (office).

Tick-Proof Your Yard

(Click on the image for Paul Hope's article in Consumer Reports)

This year is expected to be one of the worst on record for ticks, and not just in the Northeast. At least one variety of disease-transmitting tick has been found in all of the lower 48 states, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“Tick control is mostly about wildlife,” says Jody Gangloff-Kaufmann, coordinator of New York State’s Integrated Pest Management Program at Cornell. “If you have an open yard where animals can enter, you’re almost certainly going to have ticks.”

Follow these five steps to deal with them effectively.

Does Your Mom Have a Working Smoke Detector? Do You?

(Click on the image for John Domen's WTOP report)

• The mother of three who died Saturday is now the ninth fire-related death in the county this year, nearly doubling last year’s total already.
• In 2017 five people lost their lives in a fire.
• “The majority of the incidents we’ve seen so far with fatalities, there’s been no working smoke alarm or the smoke alarm has been in a location in the house where it did the occupants no good,” Brady said.
• “We’ve changed the law recently in Prince George’s County where you must have a working smoke alarm on every level of your home, and we’re also requiring that those smoke alarms, if they’re battery operated, to be the 10-year model.”
• This is important: How to make a home fire escape plan

April Was Distracted Driving Awareness Month (but we were too busy to notice!)

(Click on the image for more)

Put your phone away and #JustDrive.

• A jury in Texas found a beverage company liable after one of its drivers crashed while talking hands-free. Verdict: $21million.
• While government and law enforcement play an important role in making and enforcing laws to keep us safe, changing our behavior as individuals is a key factor in creating lasting change that can save lives.
• AAA: "people in the United States value safe travel and also desire a greater level of security than they currently are experiencing.  Unsafe driving behavior – such as red-light running, texting while driving and impaired driving – are perceived as posing serious threats to personal safety.  However, despite these strongly held concerns, many individuals admit engaging in unsafe driving practices. Most drivers (89.3%) reported engaging in at least one of the risky behaviors examined in the survey at least once in the past 30 days. As such, drivers in the sample often demonstrate a “do as I say, not as I do” attitude.  For example, although 92% of respondents reported that driving through a light that just turned red when they could have stopped is unacceptable behavior, 43% admitted to doing so in the past month. These examples highlight discordance between motorists’ traffic safety culture beliefs and concerns and actual driving behaviors."

Police Cracking Down on Route 301 Drivers After 7 Deaths

(Click on the image for Tracee Wilkins' News4 report)

• Seven people, including three pedestrians, have been killed this year so far on Route 301 in Maryland. Marla Marshall's 16-year-old son, Derrick Stanton, was hit and killed as he crossed the road in January. News4's Tracee Wilkins spoke with Marshall and heard how state police are cracking down on dangerous drivers.
• "If you're doing the speed limit on 301, you're going to get run over."
• Unfortunate competition for "The Highway of Death" label.

"God, please let this child be alive"

(Click on the image for the police report)

“God, please let this child be alive,” that was the first thought that went through Corporal Darryl Wormuth’s mind on Tuesday. He was looking at a one-and-a-half year old girl strapped in a car seat, her head titled forward and she wasn’t moving. She was alone in a hot car and it turns out she had been there for hours. The corporal moved closer to check on her – thankfully, she was breathing.

Zika, Lyme drive big increase in bug-borne disease in U.S.

(Click on the image for Maggie Fox's nbcnews.com report)

• More than 640,000 Americans were infected by so-called vector-borne diseases between 2004 and 2016, and nine new diseases, from Bourbon virus to Zika, have shown up, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
• In 2004, just 27,388 cases of these diseases were reported. In 2016, more than 96,000 were. These numbers are almost certainly an underestimate, the CDC added.
• Most of the increase comes from the arrival of Zika virus in 2015 and from ticks. Longer, hotter summers are not helping, said Dr. Lyle Petersen of the CDC’s National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases.

CDC's advice for staying safe:

• Use an Environmental Protection Agency-registered insect repellent
• Wear long-sleeve shirts and long pants.
• Treat items, such as boots, pants, socks, and tents, with permethrin or use permethrin-treated clothing and gear.
• Take steps to control ticks and fleas on pets.
• Find and remove ticks daily from family and pets.
• Take steps to control mosquitoes, ticks, and fleas inside and outside your home.