Email this page to friends RSS feed About the Author Joseph L. Galloway is the senior military correspondent for Knight Ridder Newspapers and a nationally syndicated columnist. One of America's preeminent war correspondents, with more than four decades as a reporter and writer, he recently concluded an assignment as a special consultant to Gen. Colin Powell at the State Department. Galloway, a native of Refugio, Texas, spent 22 years as a foreign and war correspondent and bureau chief for United Press International, and nearly 20 years as a senior editor and senior writer for U.S. News & World Report magazine. His overseas postings include tours in Japan, Vietnam, Indonesia, India, Singapore and three years as UPI bureau chief in Moscow in the former Soviet Union. During the course of 15 years of foreign postings Galloway served four tours as a war correspondent in Vietnam and also covered the 1971 India-Pakistan War and half a dozen other combat operations. In 1990-1991 Galloway covered Desert Shield/Desert Storm, riding with the 24th Infantry Division (Mech) in the assault into Iraq. General H. Norman Schwarzkopf has called Galloway "The finest combat correspondent of our generation -- a soldier's reporter and a soldier's friend." Special Feature: "Discharged and Dishonored" This special report looks at the plight of our nation's veterans, and their battle to claim their benefits. Full Joe Galloway Bio Joe Galloway Archives Special Report: Read Joe Galloway's new column for Knight Ridder Newspapers on Echo Company. Sound Off! -- Have an opinion about this article? Visit the Joe Galloway discussion forum. Military Opinions Index Your Two Cents Submit your stories, news items, or a benefits update -- and help Military.com bring the best, most important stories to your fellow servicemembers, veterans, and family members. Contribute here

WASHINGTON - In a few more days Memorial Day weekend will be upon us. For most it is the first three-day holiday weekend of summer.

For others Memorial Day stands for so much more than the opening of the swimming pools or the really big sales or the day when it's permissible to wear white shoes and straw boater hats.

It is a time to remember all who have fallen in battle serving our country in an unbroken line from Concord's bridge to Little Round Top to San Juan Hill to Chateau Thierry to the cliffs at Pont-du-Hoc to Pork Chop Hill to the Ia Drang Valley to the latest Marine battles along the Syrian border in Iraq.

Millions have died for the idea of freedom, for the dream of democracy, and on this Memorial Day we remember them and honor them with parades and speeches and the mournful sound of taps blown by a sweet bugle on a green hillside.

We also take time to remember those who served, and survived, but are now gone from among us, and here I am thinking of our World War II veterans: There were 15 million who wore an American uniform between 1941 and 1945, and now fewer than 3 million are still alive.

My father and six of his brothers wore the uniform in WWII; four of my mother's brothers, as well. They are all gone now, all but the youngest brother in each family. Neither they nor their comrades ever talked much about what they had done, or what they had endured during those long years at war.

Their generation, which came of age in a Great Depression and was fated to fight in the bloodiest war in the history of the world, wasn't much for talking about war. I think they reckoned if you'd been there you knew what it was about - and if you hadn't you could never understand.

They are disappearing right before our eyes, and when the last of them is gone we will have lost the best part of us. The next time you see a World War II veteran shake his hand and thank him for his service and his sacrifice so that we can continue to live in freedom.

This past week I was at an ROTC commissioning ceremony at Norwich University in Vermont, and watched as a World War II veteran -- an Army staff sergeant who still fit in his old brown wool uniform with the chevrons and hash marks on the sleeves -- helped pin the shiny new gold lieutenant's bars on his grandson and then offered the new lieutenant his first salute. Hard to tell who was the proudest - granddad or grandson - because all in the audience had a bit of eye trouble.

If you want to get a feel for the continuity of a family's service to our country, go to any ROTC commissioning ceremony. See a father and a grandfather, each in his old uniform, pin the bars on a young man or woman, and you begin to understand the magnitude of one family's continuing gift of service, generation after generation.

If you want to get a feel for what that service means in wartime, and America is at war this spring, consider that these young people accepting a military commission will go to officer basic school and some will be leading an Army or Marine platoon in combat within six or eight months. They listen very carefully to the lessons and advice. A few may dream of becoming heroes, but most just worry about getting real good at the job so they can bring home safely as many of the troops entrusted to them as possible.

This has been another hard year. Our troops continue the fight in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere in the global war on terrorism, and the toll from all of that is approaching 2,000 American sons and daughters dead since the events of 9/11.

At times I feel like I have much too great an investment in all of this: There are good friends, and the sons and daughters of good friends, at risk over there. There's one commander whose silver oak leaves I helped pin on - he's the son of a first sergeant of the 7th U.S. Cavalry who died in Vietnam. There's another who's been a very close friend since he was a captain.

I say a little prayer every day for them, and for every American son and daughter at risk in these wars.

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