I once again attended a very nice and small Memorial Day event in my home town. I’m still at the point in my life where I have to somewhat force myself to go to them because I know that range of emotions I’ll experience during this brief 20 minute ceremony is going to have me going from smiling, to pouting, to crying, and hopefully back to smiling by the end of it. I still don’t like to go to these events because I said it last year, and I’ll say it again, the scars I bare from my time in the Army have not yet healed. I think that they are slowly getting better, though I may suffer a setback here or there, but I keep ducking fire and moving forward in my life as best I can. And I believe I am wise enough to know that it is not only expected of me, but I believe it is my responsibility to attend any Memorial Day Ceremony because I owe at least that much to the men and women who gave their lives so that I could come home and do my best at living a good and honorable life that would make them proud of me, regardless of whether I knew them, or was even fighting in the same war.

Today was Memorial Day, a day to remember all veterans who have given their lives in the defense of this country. That is a price that all of us in the armed forces are asked to pay, but very few of us actually have to face the bill collector on that deal, but some do. More often than not, the situation is made more tragic because wars are not fought by old men who have had the pleasure of living long and bountiful lives. It is fought by young men whose path in this world has not yet been made. His legacy has not yet been left. His mark has not yet been left on this earth, and all he is a well-trained big ball of potential that is instead taken from us before he ever has a chance to show the world his true potential and the great things he might have one day done had he been given the chance.

I’ve noticed something in recent, both on TV, reading, and in my own personal life with my own personal friends. Casualties of war don’t always occur on a distant battlefield. For those of us that have stood face to face with our enemy and fought side by side with our brothers only to see us survive while the man next to you dies, the hardest battle is yet to come. Coming home to parades and happy reunions is great, but it does nothing to quiet the war that just won’t seem to stop going through your head. To put it bluntly, post-deployment suicides are increasing the numbers of veterans that we try our best to remember on Memorial Day. I’ve had 5 of my friends decide to take their own lives since I have moved on from the Army. They were simply unable to come to peace with the war that was being fought in their own minds, even after they were safely back home and I think this is the greatest tragedy of all. This is something every combat soldier goes through when they come home, and unfortunately, it gets the best of some of us.

Memorial Day is a great and sacred holiday, and something I truly hope that everyone appreciates for what it is intended to be, and not just a free day off from work or school like it seems it’s become. But let us also not forget a younger generation that may be struggling with that internal war, and if you see or know somebody like that, just go be their friend. Let them know you care about them, because that might be all it takes for them to find some small amount of that oh so hard to find peace during a period of war.