Two hundred fifty years ago this summer, our Founding Fathers created a new nation, as President Abraham Lincoln put it, “conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” This Memorial Day, we should remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice and made its unlikely existence possible.
America’s success wasn’t preordained. It was hard-fought by the patriots at Lexington and Concord, and no less by the 13 U.S. service members who recently died in the war to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
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Surveying the course of American history, President Ronald Reagan observed that “freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction.” The privileges that Americans and millions of freedom-loving people throughout the world enjoy come at a cost, sometimes a steep one.
During the Revolution, an estimated 25,000 Americans died. More than 600,000, roughly 2% of the population, fell during the Civil War. The two world wars together claimed more than half a million American lives.
“Our debt to the heroic men and valiant women in the service of our country can never be repaid,” President Harry Truman said in April 1945, after America and its allies defeated Adolf Hitler and his fascists. “They have earned our undying gratitude. America will never forget their sacrifice.”
But not long after the most devastating war in modern history, America and its fighting men and women were asked once again to sacrifice for the cause of freedom.
Tens of thousands of Americans fell in the half-century struggle to defeat communism, from the frozen tundras of the Korean peninsula to the jungles of Southeast Asia and beyond. In the 21st century, more than 7,500 Americans have been killed so far in the struggle against Islamist terrorism. Both of these fights, against Islamism and communism, continue.
Time and again, the men and women of the U.S. military have stepped forward when it counted. They fought to end the evils of slavery, fascism, communism, and Islamism. Americans have benefited immeasurably from their sacrifices, and so has the rest of the free world.
America has been an unparalleled force for good.
This Memorial Day, America looks back on its 250th year in gratitude for the selflessness that allowed it to endure and to thrive. This appreciation should be tempered by the knowledge that more sacrifices will be required.
For the first time since the mid-19th century, America faces the prospect of war with a peer competitor, China. For the first time in its history, the United States confronts an alliance of nuclear-armed powers, China, Russia, and North Korea, with ambitions to end the global order led by Washington.
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The U.S. remains what it was at its birth: bold and daring, and, when at its best, an example to the rest of the world. But its freedom and privileges must not be taken for granted.
The best way to honor the military dead is to strive, today and every day, to be worthy of the sacrifice they made. That means remembering that the American experiment is ongoing, and that its hard-won victories can still be lost if future generations fail to live up to the greatness of those who came before them.
