Memorial Day is a day to remember above all else, writes Laurie Roberts.

The car ad on the front page of the newspaper over the weekend invites you to a Memorial Day “sales event celebration.”

If that doesn’t grab you, a painting company is offering 10 percent off for “Memorial Day savings” on page 3 and on page 7, a furniture store announces “Our best Memorial Day offer ever!”

It’s enough, after talking with David Woodland, to make you feel ... slightly ashamed.

Woodland was 17 when he joined the Navy. As a torpedoman, he hunted submarines and battled enemy ships in the Pacific during World War II.

He was one of the lucky ones. He came home.

He’s about to turn 93 now but he can still remember when Memorial Day was about honoring sacrifice, not snagging a smoking deal on a Ford F-150.

“As generations pass, it is only a three-day break to drink beer and barbecue,” Woodland told me. “But to be truly offensive, it has become a valid reason to buy a mattress, buy a car, or have a house painted as advertised as the great Memorial Day sale.”

Woodland asked me to relay a request.

Before you begin today’s holiday festivities, take a minute to remember a hunk of rock known as Iwo Jima or a bloody beach named Omaha.

Before you head to the lake, remember a frozen Belgian forests where brave men once stood their ground and helped save the world.

Before you break out the burgers and beer, remember Khe Sanh and Hamburger Hill, Heartbreak Ridge and Inchon.

Remember Fallujah and Kandahar and Kabul.

It’s easy to forget the fallen on a day such as this, when the sun is shining and the desert is blooming and we are gloriously free from the shackles of the usual Monday routine.

Don’t. Take a moment to remember the men and women who paid the price for that barbecue you’ll be enjoying today.

People like Army Spc. Spencer Karol, 20, of Woodruff, Ariz., and Airman 1st Class Raymond Losano, 24, of Tucson, and Marine Sgt. Fernando Padilla-Ramirez, 26, of San Luis, who became a Marine in his teens and an American citizen in 2001. Two years later, he was killed in an attack on his convoy near Nasiriyah, Iraq.

People like Army Pfc. Barbara Vieyra, 22, of Mesa, and Army Pfc. Harry Shondee Jr., 19, of Ganado, and Marine Cpl. Jeffrey David Lawrence, 22, of Tucson, who died along with three other Marines in 2004 when their vehicle struck a mine on the outskirts of Fallujah. Four days after his death, his daughter was born. Her name is Cadence Freedom.

Remember Army Spc. Isaac Campoy, 21, of Douglas, who enlisted a month after graduating high school in 2001.

And Army Maj. Steven Hutchison, 60, of Scottsdale, a Vietnam veteran who was inspired to serve once more after 9/11. He served in Afghanistan and in Iraq, where a roadside bomb detonated near his vehicle in Basra in 2009.

Remember Army Staff Sgt. Carl Eric Hammar, 24, of Lake Havasu City, and Marine Lance Cpl. Michael J. Halal, 22, of Glendale, and Navy Hospitalman Nathan Martens of Queen Creek. He was 20 and killed while on night patrol with a Marine unit in Al Qaim, Iraq, in 2005.

He left behind a wife and daughter, Riley Jo, just 10 months old. Nathan wanted to be a pediatrician.

More than 1.1 million American military personnel have been killed in U.S. wars, including more than 6,500 in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Take just a moment today to remember those young men and women from every generation who went to war and never returned. Remember, too, the families for whom every day is Memorial Day.

“Just remember,” Nathan Martens’ father, Rob, once told me. “Remember all those guys. Once in a while, give it a thought.

“You see a flag, remember the cost.”