Memorial Day honors those who never came home, wrote an Air Force veteran

On this Memorial Day, as our nation pauses to honor those who gave their last measure of self-sacrifice, I find myself thinking not of invisible figures or distant fields, but of the faces, words and laughter of colleagues I have lost along the way.

I enlisted in the Air Force as an explosives disposal specialist in 1979. For more than three decades, I served in uniform, from the aircraft carrier to the B-1 pilot’s seat, from military accounting to unit command, through nuclear operations and multiple deployments. On that trip, I buried friends. I stood and watched as the Taps echoed across the grass of the cemetery. I watched folded flags being placed in the trembling hands of widows and children. Each loss carved a permanent mark on my soul.

Some fell from the skies over Iraq and Afghanistan. Others were taken by the hidden dangers we face every day like EOD techs, improvised explosive devices that turned deployments into last resort. A few were lost right here at home on September 11, 2001, when American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon. I survived that day. Many of the men and women I worked with did not. Their names are inscribed on the Pentagon Memorial, and they are always remembered by me.

These were not victims of war. They were the sharpest airmen who showed up early for shift changes, the pilots who flew the wing on my toughest missions, the NCOs who taught me lessons that I still carry today. They were men, wives, fathers, mothers and friends who answered the same call I did: to defend the Republic and the Constitution we swore to uphold and defend.

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Memorial Day is not Veterans Day. We did not come home. It’s about those who didn’t. It’s about the empty seat at the dinner table, the missing voice in the group’s right room, the child who will grow up only knowing his parent through stories and pictures. It is about the sacred debt owed to the entire Gold Star family that carries a heavier burden than any sack maker we have ever carried.

At a time when some would like to forget our history or rewrite it to suit modern sensibilities, I refuse. The service and sacrifice of every American who died in uniform, from the Revolutionary War to the mountains of Afghanistan, deserves our unconditional gratitude. They did not die for political parties or temporary reasons. They die for the idea that this nation, as imperfect as we are, is still the greatest power of freedom that has ever existed in the world.

A headstone and an American flag are seen at Arlington Military Cemetery, United States, during Memorial Day, which is held annually to honor those who died serving in the military in Virginia, United States on May 29, 2023. (Celal Gunes/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

To my veterans: Take a moment this weekend to say their names out loud. Tell your children and grandchildren who they were and why they were important. To the families of the fallen: know that we remember. Your loss is our loss. Your sorrow is borne by all of us who wore the uniform.

And to the Americans: honor them not just with parades and cookouts, but with a quiet decision to live lives worthy of their sacrifices. Teach your children the value of work. They represented the values ​​they were defending. Support those who are still serving and those who carry the invisible wounds of war.

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On this Memorial Day, I will visit the memorials and cemeteries again. I will pay tribute to the fallen as I am 46 years old. And I will whisper a silent thank you to all my lost colleagues, the men and women who proved that freedom is never free.

They gave everything. The least we can do is remember.