“…Many men and women throughout our history have made payment on the price of freedom. Many have paid the price with time in service, deployed away from home.

Some have paid the price with wounds that you can see, some with wounds few of us will ever understand. Families have paid with the sacrifice of time apart, with the constant fear of loss, with living in a world which often goes on around them oblivious to what they face every day. And we are here today because some have paid, and will pay, with their lives. This is the price of our freedom.

Today, as in 1863, our responsibility is the same.  You and I have an obligation to these brave warriors by never forgetting them.  We must honor them by not taking for granted what they did for us, ever.  Each of us, in our own way, must work to understand the meaning of their sacrifice, and help our children to understand it. 

We must always remember the price they paid and know that freedom never was free, is not now, and never will be. We must work to fully understand what they fight for and what they fight against, to understand not only the cost to them of fighting but the cost to all of us of not fighting. We must live lives worthy of the price they paid to buy us our freedom. 

Today and in every tomorrow, let us not forget what we have in this great republic, and let us not forget all of the men and women who fought to their dying breath that we may live in freedom, and work for justice. Let each of us, in our own way, live lives that are worthy of the sacrifice these men and women have made.  Remember these heroes, and what they have bought for us with their lives.  They died that we might live in peace and freedom.   

…May God bless the United States of America, and the American heroes we honor today.”

-Lt. Colonel David Volkman, United States Army-

Memorial Day – Full Speech