On Memorial Day, we often think of black and white pictures of faces from times we’ve only read about. We might consider a newspaper article or item on the nightly news about a soldier who died, though we can’t recall where or when in the next minute. Some citizens have a personal connection to a father or mother, grandfather, uncle or great someone or other whose medal is in someone’s attic.

If we’re conscious enough of the day and our city is, too, we might go to a parade. If we try even harder, we go to a cemetery and listen to a speech, prayer, and song.

The United States Military of today is second to none. They are highly trained professionals. It is more stringent now than in years past. They are the one percent: citizens who choose to defend the country they love, pass the required tests to get in, and demonstrate the resolve, determination, strength, and grit to complete and pass a brutal training process. A surprising number do not make it. Yes, they are the one percent, but their families are ordinary people with an added layer to the usual worries of life.

If you have someone near and dear in the military, Memorial Day goes a little deeper. It is personal. It is close.

At the beginning of your soldier’s training, you belong to groups who help each other through. You learn of plans accomplished or delayed. Someone got their college degree and decided to enlist. Someone has dreamed of this since he was 5. Someone enlisted and told her family afterward, leaving them to adjust quickly and ignore the gut punch. You see question after question about this new life. What does this phrase mean? When does this phase happen? Eyes glaze over from the number of acronyms until you start using them, yourself, as a convenient sort of shorthand. You read many requests asking for prayer for their trainee to pass yet another test. To recover from an injury or sickness. To survive heartbreak. To endure missing important family events: funerals, weddings, graduations, births. To keep going when they’d rather quit. You see many photos of handsome and pretty soldiers and compliment the ones who posted them. You smile at family pictures and can almost hear the exclamations of greeting and laughter and catching up. You cheer every success and graduation.

As time passes,you admire crafts made by hands of someone who is urging their soldier home stitch by stitch, project by project. Maybe you let someone know love is sent their way when they are lonely or worried. You commend every promotion. You read questions about locations of military bases. What are they like? How dangerous is it? You are privy to close calls and near misses. You hear about news of deployment and visceral sickness and worry so heavy it makes it hard to do ordinary things that need doing. Pride and fear become inextricably linked, and heaven is inundated with desperate prayers from all corners of the country at all hours.

And often on those support pages you see the picture of someone’s son or daughter or husband or wife and read that they were killed yesterday. They were killed in a live fire training exercise. They were killed in a roll-over tactical vehicle accident. They were killed in Afghanistan or Iraq or someplace whose name we know, with a few facts we can repeat, but not much else. You recognize a name. A face. And there it is.

Because Memorial Day is so much more than a parade or speech or photo. It is a person you knew. A person whose mother you talked with and whose visits home you celebrated. This soldier is a member of those admired by good people, but personally known by few. And this soldier deserves not just a minute on a day of remembering. He or she merits some time of reflection on his life and dreams, quirky sense of humor, tender letters home, anxious waiting, and desire to do a good thing. This soldier deserves a country’s honor.

Images: Unsplash; National Infantry Museum