Memorial Day always makes me stop and think about something uncomfortable.
As a former Marine who served in Iraq, I've seen war firsthand. I've seen enough to understand that war is ugly, tragic, and deeply human. I've known people who didn't make it home in one piece, and I don't take lightly the sacrifices made by the men and women who fought in Iraq, Afghanistan, or any conflict in my lifetime.
But one of the things that struck me most while I was deployed wasn't my own experience.
It was thinking about the generations that came before us.
I remember sitting in Iraq and trying to imagine what it must have been like to fight during World War II. Not watching a documentary. Not reading a history book. Actually being there.
Imagine being a young Marine sitting in a landing craft approaching Iwo Jima. You're eighteen or nineteen years old. The ramp is about to drop. You know there is a very real chance that within minutes you'll be dead. The beach ahead is fortified. The enemy is waiting. Friends you've trained with are standing beside you, and some of them will never leave that island.
Yet when the ramp drops, you go anyway.
Or imagine a young soldier huddled in a freezing foxhole somewhere in Europe. Hungry. Exhausted. Terrified. Wondering if he will survive the night. Wondering if he'll ever see home again.
Many never did.
Seriously. Just stop for a second and imagine that. Really feel it.
As I've gotten older, that's the part that affects me most. Not simply that they died, but everything they gave up when they did.
They never got to come home.
They never got to marry the person they loved. Never got to hold their children. Never got to watch those children grow into adults. Never got to become grandparents. Never got to sit on a porch decades later and tell stories about a life well lived.
Their lives ended while they were still writing the first chapters.
This weekend, the news is reporting record travel numbers. Airports are packed. Highways are crowded. Families are heading to beaches, lakes, backyard barbecues, and vacations.
And as I thought about that, something struck me.
The reason millions of Americans can spend this weekend doing ordinary things is because extraordinary people came before them.
People who sacrificed everything.
People who left home and never returned.
People who gave up every future possibility they had so that future generations could have theirs.
Sometimes I wonder if we've become so comfortable that we've forgotten what this holiday actually means.
Not because we're bad people.
Not because we're ungrateful.
But because we've been blessed enough not to understand.
We live in a world with freedoms, comforts, and opportunities that previous generations could barely imagine. We complain about traffic. We complain about slow internet. We argue politics with strangers online. We worry about inconveniences that would have seemed absurd to people fighting for survival in places like Normandy, Bastogne, Guadalcanal, or Iwo Jima.
And I include myself in that observation.
Then I remember those young men standing on a beach under enemy fire, knowing there was a good chance they would never see another sunrise.
And suddenly my problems seem a little smaller.
This Memorial Day, I'm not thinking about politics. I'm not thinking about parties, elections, or headlines.
I'm simply remembering.
Remembering the men and women who gave everything they had for a future they would never see.
And feeling grateful that I get to live in it.
—Jeff
Helping people awaken with purpose, presence, and power.