I’m grateful for the American men and women in uniform who made the ultimate sacrifice to establish our nation and keep us free, in wars and skirmishes and secret missions around the globe over the past few centuries. I’m grateful every day that I get to live in America and enjoy the fruits of being an American, thanks in no small part to those who died on behalf of our country. Memorial Day is an opportunity to offer extra thanks, to show more visible appreciation of those who perished at Bunker Hill, on Iwo Jima, in the skies over Europe, under the ocean, in the jungles of Vietnam, on the sands of Iraq or in the mountains of Afghanistan and everywhere else that our nation has had to send men and women to defend itself and our allies.

As a writer, I always wonder about the unfinished lives, the untold stories each of those sacrifices represents. What would that individual have gone on to do with their life, if given the chance? What effect did their gallant death have on all those who loved them, or who would have loved them?  What would their never-to-be-born children and grandchildren have brought to the world? We’ll never know. The best we can do is honor the sacrifices made for us by doing the best we can do with our lives, leaving the world a better, stronger place.

And never ever forgetting the debt we owe for our freedom. Thank you.

“Soldiers, when committed to a task, can’t compromise. It’s unrelenting devotion to the standards of duty and courage, absolute loyalty to others, not letting the task go until it’s been done.” John Keegan

“Soldiers are dreamers; when the guns begin they think of firelit homes, clean beds, and wives.” Siegfried Sassoon