Every year on this auspicious holiday for our fallen, I hear the lament of how commercialized it has become. Lost in the shuffle of countless sales events nationwide, is the concept of serving one’s country. Memorial Day is confused with Veterans Day and the dichotomy vexes me. This is a day to celebrate and remember our fallen warriors-not the survivors.

We have now essentially extricated ourselves from one of the longest, most protracted engagements in the history of our nation. We have experienced almost continuous warfare since 2001 and fortunately escaped relatively unscathed when measured against the only other similar time span during the Vietnam Boundary Dispute of the sixties and seventies.

Americans who choose to serve their country are an eclectic bunch and come from all walks of life. Those who survive often return to their prior pursuits and put this chapter in their lives behind them. Some find the calling alluring and make a career of it. And then we have the group who, for whatever reason, give their all for the concept of true freedom.

The seven percent who hear the siren call and find it irresistible are what makes this country the international bulwark of democracy. That sounds rather archaic in this day and age but the concept of putting one’s country before one’s own desires is rare. Too often we hear in the news the incessant drumbeat of perceived slights, racial discord and dissatisfaction with the status quo. Imagine voluntarily laying one’s own rights down and fighting for the right of others to enjoy what you have forsworn.  It sounds insane on its face but hundreds of thousands of altruistic souls join this elite club with no apparent motive other than to protect our nation.

These seven percent sign up in war and peace alike knowing full well the danger and the ultimate price they risk when doing so. My family seems to be similarly afflicted. This list began in the War of Independence when one of my forbears felt the compulsion to fight the British. This certainly wasn’t motivated by money in 1776. It was purely a desire to live free.

The War of Northern Aggression brought out ancestors on both sides with many casualties. I don’t think the family tree ever recovered as my extended family was truncated for decades afterwards. Recriminations continued for a century. The death of the disenfranchised has buried that hatchet for the most part.

Following America’s entry into World War I, my stepgrandfather and namesake came back from Australia to serve in combat in Europe. He certainly wasn’t obligated but that is the flaw in the makeup of our family genes. The smell of gunpowder is the eau de parfum of our family. It is the common thread that knits and weaves my clan to America.  Its aroma draws otherwise sane people into putting their lives in danger to preserve a nation and a way of life.

Prior to World War II, my Uncle Jay induced old Grandpa to sign for him in 1933. Being seventeen and having no prospects for advancement in Oildale, California, the world looked like a better adventure. Jay went up and down through the ranks like the musical scales. His proclivity for drinking was the culprit. Nevertheless, he never broke faith with the Army and endured the privations of innumerable Article 15s and lost wages. This continued right up until he found himself with a bullet in his ankle and an involuntarily participant of the 128 kilometer Bataan Fun Run. He survived and was repatriated in 1945 after over three years as a prisoner of war. In spite of this, he still maintained he’d do it all over given the chance. Such is the defective gene in my family.

My father felt the tug a short time later following his graduation from college. He was commissioned in 1941 and was assigned, to his chagrin, to teaching aerial fighter pilot gunnery to the Tuskegee airmen. He endured this for several years until the yearning for combat overwhelmed his common sense. He proceeded to buzz a few sailboats in the Gulf of Mexico and do a loop around the Apalachicola Bridge in a P-51 Mustang –twice. That was the last straw. His punishment? Why, transfer to England in August 1944 and the 355th Fighter Group at Steeple Morden. At home in this element, he proceeded to bag 16 and a half aircraft in the ensuing nine months.

He decided to make it a career which was an eventual deal breaker for my mother. He moved from one theater of war to the next and fought in Korea as well as Vietnam. He was happiest when above 20,000 feet with the sun at his back.

And then there was me. In 1969, I could see the writing on the wall. If I attended college, this shindig was going to be over before I graduated. After a minor altercation involving beer, flying eggs, and reckless driving four days after my graduation from high school, the Hampton, Va. Draft Board determined wrongly that I was 1A. I promptly enlisted in the Air Force and dreamed of gunpowder, too. Mick Jagger’s Wild Horses couldn’t drag me away from it.

I spent two years in Southeast Asia. That’s all I’m going to say about that. My son was wooed by the military when he graduated in 2006 but unfortunately inherited an autoimmune disorder from me due to my exposure to Agent Orange. The VA does not recognize Crohn’s disease or Ulcerative Colitis as being proximately due to AO, but that is beside the point.  They will come to this realization shortly after the last one exposed is laid to rest-along with a host of other ailments. I am not disheartened to see him avoid this. Were he healthy, I would still counsel him to avoid service after what I endured. My family have paid our dues many times over. It’s time to skip a generation or two.

I have watched one of my son’s best friends who chose this path. Joshua joined the Army, and being a gung ho type, immediately signed up for Ranger School. He recently departed for his fourth deployment and already has two Bronze Stars. The toll on his mind is telling. He’s unable, as we all were after Vietnam, to relate to the land of the big PX. After returning from each deployment, he sits on the sofa waiting for the next. Like an addictive drug, he won’t be satisfied until something bad happens. I know. It’s the same perfume sometimes called eau d’ stress and is quite the panacea for wanderlust. Joshua’s new bride is not so enamored of his proclivities but is supporting nevertheless.

In closing, let us pray for all the souls who are not here to celebrate America’s greatness this weekend. The seven percent are a unique club with no unifying membership. We do not ask for more than what was promised in our compact with our country to defend it. Unfortunately, the promises that were made and the gifts that were exchanged gradually become yesterday’s compacts-null and void. America moves on and the Vets get left behind.

Let us never forget that we owe so much to so few of our citizens that cannot be repaid monetarily. Veterans are unique. In no other society can we become soldiers yet melt back into the ranks of citizenry as if we had never left. Would that America would honor its promises to us for our service. We ask for no more- nor less.