I imagine the hardship you endured in America and the Philippines. Those thoughts create a pathway to you. You too left loved ones behind who cherished your memory. You risked your lives so that the lives of your brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, would be better. You are more than just soldiers of the Twenty-fourth Regiment of Infantry, and this story is bigger than just a chapter in Yosemite's military history. To consider it solely on that level would serve only to diminish your lives and the complexities of the country you lived in. Somehow we have met before. The face of history is never a stranger. The deeper we gaze into the past, the greater our recognition of ourselves in other places and other times. We are all amnesiacs stumbling around the world trying to find out who we are, where we belong, and where we come from, until that moment when we find a story that tells us everything about ourselves. You, who are soldiers, who are family, have given me that story. In so doing you have assured yourself a presence in Yosemite. Thank you for clearing the trail that we follow 100 years later.