For most readers of The Republican Standard here in Virginia, Memorial Day is more than just a long weekend. While we certainly enjoy the day off—grilling in the backyard, taking the kids to the lake, or just soaking in the unofficial start of summer—we also pause, if only briefly, to remember. We remember those who—as a great Republican once put it—”gave their lives that the nation might live.” It’s good that we do that, to meditate for just a moment on the history of sacrifice that permits us to live in freedom.
But for others Memorial Day is more personal, and for them the day carries a different meaning. As I wrote in another Memorial Day meditation, this is the distinction between those who go to Arlington to go to the Tomb of the Unknowns, and those with the personal connection, who go to Arlington to go to Section 60.
For the Families, the Loss Is a Wound That Never Fully Heals
We can roughly divide those for whom Memorial Day carries deep emotional weight into two groups: the families and close friends of the fallen, and those who served alongside them in combat.
For the families—parents, siblings, spouses, children—the loss never truly fades. It leaves a hole that isn’t patched up over time. Most of these heroes died young—late teens or early twenties—and with that comes a particular kind of grief: pride in their service, yes, but also a sense of unlived life cut short.
A soldier-father once told me, after losing his daughter in uniform: “I’m not learning how to live without her. I’m learning to live with her differently.” That kind of grief changes you. It stays.
Yes, time brings some healing. The young widows we saw photographed next to flag-draped coffins during the height of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are now in their 30s or 40s. Their children—those left behind—are teenagers now, some even adults. Life has moved forward, as it must. But the tapestry of their lives remains torn, stitched together with memory and courage.
And for some families, the loss is recent and the pain is still fresh. They’ll spend this Memorial Day at Arlington’s Section 60, not for a ceremony, but to visit a specific grave.
For Veterans, It’s About Absent Companions
Then there are those of us who served alongside the fallen.
We knew them. We shared time—boredom, excitement, privation, and danger—with them. In some cases, we carried their lifeless bodies off the field. Memorial Day is deeply felt.
For the families, the life of the fallen is a novel with a sudden ending. But for the comrades who fought beside them, it’s more like a short story—intense, compressed, unforgettable. We didn’t know our friends as children, with very rare exceptions. But our interactions, if brief, were incredibly intense. So for us, they are forever the age at which we last saw them. They shall not grow old…Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
We miss them, our friends with whom we shared so much. Those of us who survived and returned, when we gather, feel the gap intently. Absent companions.
So This Weekend…
Again, for most, Memorial Day does not have an intense connection. Thankfully. We don’t wish for any further losses.They were “enough to do their country loss” and we do not wish for any more sacrifice than is required.
So enjoy the holiday. Fire up the grill. Head out to the Shenandoah or Smith Mountain Lake. But sometime this weekend—pause. Take a moment to think of the brave men and women who gave what Abraham Lincoln called “the last full measure of devotion.” And remember, too, the families who will carry that loss with them for the rest of their lives.
And this Memorial Day, let’s remember the absent companions.
