‘These dead shall not have died in vain’

We spend a lot of time dividing ourselves into smaller and smaller groups. White people. Tall people. Rich people. Old people. Disabled people.

But what unites all of the varied citizens of our United States?

Shared sacrifice.

There’s scarcely a family among our nation of more than 311 million souls that hasn’t sacrificed at least one son or daughter to military service. Thousands of families have been added to this list since the wars began in Afghanistan in October 2001 and Iraq in March 2003.

Oct. 7 of this year marks the 10th anniversary of the beginning of the war in Afghanistan, the longest in U.S. history. It earned that distinction in June 2010 when it surpassed the Vietnam War in duration.

In the last decade, more than 7,000 U.S. troops — and contractors — in Afghanistan and Iraq have died in combat.

It is this group and their sacrifice — and all those who made that same sacrifice before them — that Memorial Day honors.

The U.S. is served by a volunteer military. All of these courageous men and women volunteer to serve knowing that some of them will return home to their families in flag-draped coffins.

And still they volunteer to fight, and possibly to die, so that this great nation may live.

There are no words to say how grateful we are to these heroes who give the last full measure of devotion. As President Abraham Lincoln said famously in his 1863 Gettysburg Address, only actions can honor such a gift.

We know that it is their sacrifice itself, and not the National Holiday Act of 1971 that consecrates this day, which was first observed in May 1868 when Gen. John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, who ordered flowers placed on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery.

As president Lincoln suggested on the battlefield that day 143 years ago, the responsibility of the living is to honor the sacrifices of our dead by increasing our commitment to the causes “for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Last week we celebrated Armed Forces Week and Armed Forces Day. Armed Forces Day honors armed services members who are currently serving. And Veterans Day honors those who have served.

But Memorial Day is a national day of awareness and reverence to honor those who died in defense of our nation and our way of life.

A couple of Memorial Day celebrations are planned Monday in the Mat-Su Borough. Events begin at 10:30 a.m. when members of Susitna VFW Post No. 9365 assemble at the Main Street Wasilla Post Office for their annual Memorial Day Parade to the cemetery on Wasilla-Fishhook. An Honor Ceremony follows at the Veterans Wall of Honor near the Mat-Su Visitors Center at 1 p.m.

A lesser known national part of this day began under President Bill Clinton, who signed a December 2000 resolution that created a National Moment of Remembrance each Memorial Day.

Wherever you are at 3 p.m., Monday, we hope you’ll pause for one minute and join us in renewing our resolve “that these dead shall not have died in vain.”