05/25/2026
If they could see America today,
I wonder what they would think.
The young men who never came home.
The boys frozen forever at nineteen.
Twenty-one.
Twenty-four.
The ones who kissed their mothers goodbye
without knowing it would be forever.
The ones who promised wives,
“I’ll be home soon.”
The ones who never got to meet the babies
their wives were still carrying.
I wonder what they would think
if they could see America now.
If they could stand quietly
on a porch somewhere this weekend
and watch the life they helped protect continue on.
Children running barefoot through the grass.
Little girls with popsicle-stained mouths.
Teenagers laughing too loud at cookouts.
Grandparents rocking slowly on front porches.
Fathers flipping burgers with toddlers hanging onto their legs.
Freedom looking ordinary.
And maybe that is the most beautiful thing of all.
Because I think sometimes we forget
that ordinary life
is the very thing they died protecting.
Not fame.
Not politics.
Not headlines.
Just this.
A country where children sleep safely at night.
Where families gather around dinner tables.
Where people can worship freely.
Dream freely.
Speak freely.
Love freely.
They died for ordinary Tuesdays.
For baseball games and school pickups.
For beach trips and fireworks.
For laughter echoing across backyards.
For quiet mornings with coffee on the porch.
For moments they would never get to grow old enough to have themselves.
And that part hurts the most.
Because somewhere in another life,
they should have become grandfathers.
Old men with wrinkled hands and stories to tell.
Men teaching little boys how to fish.
Walking daughters down aisles.
Holding grandchildren who carry their eyes.
But instead—
their mothers visit graves.
Instead—
their names are etched into stone.
Instead—
their futures were handed over
so ours could continue.
I wonder if they would be shocked
by how quickly people forget.
How Memorial Day slowly became sales ads
and mattress discounts
and “long weekend” captions.
I wonder if it would break their hearts
to know how often sacrifice becomes background noise
in a comfortable country.
Or maybe—
maybe they would simply smile softly
watching little American flags wave in tiny hands.
Maybe they would stand silently at the edge of family barbecues
watching generations laugh together
and think,
“It was worth it.”
Maybe they would look at all the ordinary beautiful lives
still unfolding beneath the freedom they protected
and feel peace knowing
their sacrifice became someone else’s future.
A future where children still run free.
Where babies are still born into safety.
Where families still gather under glowing summer skies.
And maybe this Memorial Day,
that is what we should remember most.
That freedom is not accidental.
It was built on the backs
of sons and daughters
who laid down every future version of themselves
for people they would never even meet.
So while the music plays
and the fireworks burst
and the laughter echoes this weekend—
may we never become so comfortable in freedom
that we forget
someone else gave their life for it.
And if they could see America today,
I hope they would know this:
We remember you.
We remember the lives you never got to live.
The families you never got to build.
The ordinary moments you never got to grow old enough to have.
And because of you—
millions of us still can.
