As the Bay Area gets ready for Memorial Day PBS offers a wonderful concert
Throughout the Tampa Bay area and central Florida people will be having picnics, going to the beach or maybe taking a short family trip as we start celebrating the unofficial beginning of summer. It is the Memorial Day weekend and while Floridians catch some ray’s PBS is planning a big Sunday event, their 28th national Memorial Day concert, hosted by Emmy and Tony Award winner Laurence Fishburne and Tony Award winner Joe Mantegna, airs at 8 p.m. seen on WEDU in the Tampa Bay area and in Orlando you can catch the concert on WUCF.
According to PBS and confirmed by Associated Press, the concert’s mission is to unite the country in remembrance and appreciation of the fallen and to serve those who are grieving. For almost three decades, PBS has inspired viewers with the annual broadcast of the multi-award-winning Memorial Day concert, dedicated to our men and women in uniform, their families at home, and all those who have given their lives for our country.
Recently, executive producer Jerry Colbert told the Associated Press, “We think of the agony of the mother or father who lost a child, the spouses and children left behind, the people who are wounded in body and soul. And we do this memorial service to remember and reach out to them. We must remember their sacrifices and continue the mission set forth by Abraham Lincoln to ‘care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan.’ “
Again, as per PBS, the 2017 concert will feature tributes to the 70th anniversary of the United States Air Force, as well as some of the most skilled aviators of World War II — the Tuskegee Airmen. The evening will also include spotlights on the healing journey of a Gold Star family from the Vietnam era, now supporting other grieving families from recent conflicts, and Captain Luis Avila’s story of courage, faith, perseverance and hope after being severely wounded in a roadside bomb blast.
Thanks to the Associated Press and PBS for the quotes and information used in this story. VIDEO FROM PBS.
