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Memorial Day is a different\nkind of holiday. More a day for honoring and remembering than pure\ncelebration. In America, it's different in another way, it's\ndifferent because we support the values our heroes died for, not just\nthe sacrifice they made for their country. While virtually every\ncountry honors their war dead, only a few also honor the cause or\ncauses they died for. In former communist and fascist countries,\nthose who honor their dead likely reject the political causes they\ndied for. In some, perhaps most cases, the honor is for protecting\ntheir homelands and answering the call of duty. In some cases, they\nwere pressed into service to fight for a cause not their own, but\nthey are honored nonetheless. \n

That's not to say that our\nvalues would be or should be in complete accord with each and every\nAmerican fallen hero. The war against the Native American tribes\ncomes to mind. Did they fall in protection of their loved ones, or\nin an effort subdue a people? Maybe both? Most importantly however,\nthose men and women we honor were our family, friends, our\ncountrymen. They were people who fought for a cause greater than\nthemselves. They fought and died for a dream, an ideal we call\n\u201cAmerica\u201d. It's an idea we might spend the rest of our days\nperfecting, but a worthy one. The challenge is to keep that idea,\nthat all men are created equal under God, that values life, liberty,\nand the pursuit of happiness, be the reason we fight, if we must\nfight. We honor our fallen by honoring those ideals, so that their\nsacrifices will never be in vain.

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