THEY GAVE US THEIR ALL

On Memorial Day, honor the men and women who

have given their lives defending our country

Spc. Miguel L. Holmes must not be forgotten.

The Georgia native was a member of the Georgia Army National Guard when he died May 6 from “wounds sustained from a noncombat incident,” according to the U.S. Department of Defense.

He was just 22 and serving in an Afghani providence that borders Pakistan. He was a member of the 1st Battalion, 118th Field

Artillery Regiment, 48th Infantry Brigade Combat Team and deployed as a part of Operation Freedom’s Sentinel.

He is among the most recent service member to die in an active combat zone.

It’s easy to see what attracted Spc. Holmes to the military. He served as a protector to his younger siblings after their mother died in

2012, and he became interested in the National Guard after serving as a cadet in the Youth Challenge Academy at Fort Stewart, in Georgia, according to his obituary.

He was interred during a service in his hometown of Hinesville, Georgia, last Tuesday.

In this country, we honor our service members when they are alive, and after they have given what President Abraham Lincoln eloquently called “their last full measure of devotion.”

Spc. Holmes joins the list of service members who we honor on Monday — Memorial Day.

We hold ceremonies and light candles and make speeches in tribute to these men and women.

But on a certain level, we are doing it for ourselves as well. Because we need to find some way to acknowledge how humbled we are by their sacrifice. We need to prove to ourselves we don’t take it for granted.

Sadly, it is far too easy for people to do just that — to take it for granted, accepting Memorial Day as a three-day weekend and an opportunity to sleep in and cook out. It’s the end of the school year, the opening of the community pool and the start of the summer travel season.

But it has to be more than that.

Everyone who lives in Hampton Roads knows somebody who serves in the military or who did so in the past.

They deserve your attention this day.

Even if you have never lost a friend or a loved one in military action, Memorial Day is an opportunity to think of the men and women who survived and those who are still serving today.

This is an observance for the ones who died, but it is also an occasion to appreciate all who are willing to put their lives on the line to protect us.

Those veterans who you will see on Monday in their old uniforms were just as willing to make the sacrifice.

They survived — whether by luck, circumstance or the grace of God — but as we commemorate our military dead today, they know it could have just as easily been them. We need to remember that, too.

The men and women who volunteered to serve in today’s military did so knowing the volatile nature of a modern world in which we are faced with a completely new and utterly insidious enemy.

We look at these service members, and we hope that we will never etch their names on a memorial. But we know it’s a possibility.

They know that, too, but they signed up for the job anyway.

They are part of a long noble tradition in our country, the latest in a lineage that traces back to the ragtag volunteer army that won our independence from the British throne.

Our ceremonies and dedications on Memorial Day pay tribute to generations of men and women who died in service to our nation.

This is a bond that brings us all together — no matter where we come from, regardless of our race or our religion.

As Americans, we owe a debt that can never truly be paid.

A day of remembrance hardly seems adequate, but if we offer it up wholeheartedly and with full respect, it’s a good start.

A moment ago, we quoted President Lincoln from the speech he made at the dedication of a Civil War cemetery at Gettysburg, Pa., in 1863.

He concluded that landmark oratory with a challenge that is worth remembering and repeating today: Finish the task for which they gave their lives, so that their sacrifice will not be in vain.

The men and women we recognize today died in defense of America.

It falls to us to make sure this is a country worthy of that devotion.