“I am an American, fighting in the forces that guard my country and our way of life.  I am prepared to give my life in their defense.” 

Article One of the U.S. Armed Forces Code of Conduct brings into sharp relief the foundation of what we honor on this day each year … Memorial Day.  Americans, willing to sacrifice their lives, if necessary, to protect their nation, their homes, their freedoms and way of life.  Sons and daughters, men and women of unlimited potential and boundless energy, friends and close compatriots lost to us forever … sometimes I wonder if we as a society are living up to their sacrifice.

Written ostensibly to provide a guide for captured service men and women, this first article has always embodied what it means to be a Soldier, Sailor, Airman, or Marine.  And, frankly, it really captures an element of American military tradition that goes back much further in history than the Korean War which inspired the drafting of the Code of Conduct.  It represents a characteristic dogged determination cited in the annals of American military history at such legendary places as Bunker Hill, Valley Forge, New Orleans, Gettysburg, San Juan Hill, Beallou Wood, Monte Cassino, Bastogne, Chosin Reservoir, Pork Chop Hill, Khe Sanh, Ia Drang, Mogadishu, Mosul, Combat Outpost Keating … the list goes on and on, as, of course, does the list of the fallen.

Memorial Day—far from the sales and harbinger of white summer apparel it has come to represent—is supposed to remind us of those who gave their lives in defense of our nation.  Gave their lives for us, their national progeny, allowing us to live the way we do today, free from slavery, oppression, and discrimination.  Few soldiers spend much time thinking about these high-sounding principles, however.  Most are cognizant only of their mission, and the presence of their brothers and sisters in arms on their right and left.  And when the shooting starts—sharp explosions representing vengeful human ingenuity and angry tracers seeking human flesh—one’s world shrinks very quickly to being just that small.

You see, the sacrifices made by our brave fallen are, more often than not, decisions made in the blink of an eye, not the product of long-winded ideological lectures or reading from some military manual.  It’s that decision, the instantaneous choice to dive upon a live hand grenade, smothering the blast with his body, that saved four of Private First Class Ross Miginnis’s comrades at Adamiyah, Iraq in 2006.  That in-the-moment choice to knowingly sacrifice what remained of their lives to protect a downed pilot made by Master Sergeant Gary Gordon and Sergeant First Class Randy Shughart at Mogadishu, Somalia in 1993.  The suicidal heroics of Lieutenant Michael Murphy at Asadabad, Afghanistan in 2005, which read like the exploits of your most incredible DC Comics superhero.  Yet this is but the tip of the iceberg.  There are more … many, many more.

To a certain degree it’s expected that soldiers die during wartime, and, if we’re being honest, we sort of expect them to do so in the brave and honorable manner we’ve learned to expect through years of Hollywood and Madison Avenue story-telling.  Yet peacetime takes a toll as well and on Memorial Day we also remember Second Lieutenants Curt Sansoucie and Spencer Dodge, recently graduated from West Point, along with Captain Milton Palmer and Sergeant Norman Tillman, all of whom died during training at the Army’s elite Ranger School in 1995.  Service women like Colonel Joo Eun (June) Cho, who passed away in 2018 as a result of her second bout with cancer.  June continued to serve on active duty until the disease physically prevented her from doing so, cancer accomplishing what Iraqi insurgents had been unable to achieve.  These were my brothers and sisters, and today I honor their passing as well as recall what they passed on to me during the course of their prematurely shortened lives.

But Memorial Day was never intended to be simply a brief period in which to light a candle, maybe say a prayer, and then conveniently forget about these brave souls for another 365 days.  No, it was meant to be a reminder to us to cherish those things for which our comrades, sons, and daughters lived for, fought, and died to defend.  To urge us to live up to the sacrifices they’ve made on our behalf—and make no mistake, it was indeed on our behalf, whether or not you agree with the cause that placed them in the line of fire.

You see, our nation is protected by an all-volunteer force, and every single service member agreed to take on the lifestyle of privation and discipline that characterizes military service.  To give up for themselves the rights they so strongly defend.  While that initial decision is often impacted by monetary, educational, and any number of external factors, the reality is they entered a life of service—one that by definition placed their lives in danger—voluntarily.  These were not Soviet troops forced at the point of a machine-gun to charge German lines at Stalingrad.  Nor were they fearful the Gestapo would round up their families and punish them if they failed to hold the ruins of Monte Cassino.  These were American Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines, volunteers in every sense of the word, and they gave their lives so we and our children could enjoy ours.

Memorial Day isn’t just a day of remembrance, or at least it shouldn’t be.  It’s a day that we, as a free and democratic society, ought to renew our dedication to make the sacrifices of these phenomenal men and women worthwhile.  A day that we—each of us—looks to the example of selflessness set by these incredible compatriots and purge—even if just for a short time—the creeping narcissism that has so permeated everything about our modern society. 

So today, this day of all days, please take a moment to consider what has been given by so many to allow your life today.  Need help with that (no shame, some might)?  Watch “Saving Private Ryan” … all the way to the end … and really take to heart that last scene.  This is, frankly, how we should all feel.  This is how we place the good of our society over and above personal gain.  This is how we make ourselves and our country better ... every day of the year.

M. G. Haynes