A blanket of red, white and blue covered Reverchon Park in Dallas as thousands gathered for the closing ceremonies of Carry the Load \u2014 a Memorial Day tribute honoring military veterans and first responders who died in service.<\/p>\n
The annual event marked 15 years since Carry the Load began as an effort to refocus Memorial Day on remembrance and sacrifice.<\/p>\n
Each flag displayed across the park represented a service member or first responder who paid the ultimate price.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would love for our nation to no longer need heroes, but we\u2019re always gonna need heroes, and how we do days where we celebrate our heroes has a lot to do with how long we\u2019ll have them,\u201d said Clint Bruce, co-founder of Carry the Load.<\/p>\n
Bruce said the organization was born out of frustration over how Memorial Day was being observed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was angry because we weren\u2019t doing Memorial Day well, and I was angry because I hadn\u2019t started doing Memorial Day well until I started losing my friends, either, and to me the antidote to anger has always been action,\u201d Bruce said.<\/p>\n
That action has grown into thousands of people walking together in solemn tribute while carrying the memory of those lost in service.<\/p>\n
Participants said the event carries deep personal meaning, even for those who never served themselves.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, it\u2019s emotional. Even though I didn\u2019t serve in the military, a lot of my family did, and some are not here anymore,\u201d said Carry the Load participant Justin Ridnour.<\/p>\n
Bruce said seeing the crowds gather each year sends a powerful message to veterans and families of the fallen.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t be angry because I think no one remembers my friends anymore \u2014 it\u2019s impossible. I mean, eight out of every 10 people here is a great American citizen, not even a veteran, and the seed of anger for a lot of veterans is we don\u2019t think America cares, and you can\u2019t legitimately feel that way after this,\u201d Bruce said.<\/p>\n
Children, families, Scout volunteers and military veterans all took part in the Memorial Day tribute together.<\/p>\n
This story was originally reported for broadcast by NBC DFW. AI tools helped convert the story into a digital article, and an NBC DFW journalist edited it again before publication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A blanket of red, white and blue covered Reverchon Park in Dallas as thousands gathered for the closing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":308514,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103,101783],"class_list":["post-308513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-memorial-day"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308513\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/308514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}