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(Remarks Made at American Legion Memorial Day Observance Ceremony, Eastman, Georgia, May 27th, 2002.)

Each and every Memorial Day, I thank someone who isn't here. All Americans should do that on Memorial Day - thank someone who isn't here, someone no longer with us, someone who died too young, too soon, stealing happiness from their loved ones, someone who died in combat in sacrifice for our country, for their community, for their beliefs. Some Americans, thankfully just a few, some here today, will recall and thank someone in particular who died in combat, someone who died in their presence, perhaps even someone who saved their life.

For me, if I recall no one else specifically on Memorial Day, I remember and thank Private First Class Michael Alan Bosowski, Catholic, single, born March 1, 1948 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, killed in combat on February 15, 1970, Quang Ngai Province, Vietnam. In a very real sense, I have Private Bosowski to thank for the honor today of giving this address.

We called him BZ. He could have run away from that grenade, the one I didn't see, the one that landed at my feet. Instead he screamed a warning, picked it up, tried to throw it away. I only took some shrapnel. BZ died saving my life. I'm here today. BZ is not here today. He is among those we come today to honor, to thank, to recall.

While I've participated in many Memorial Day observances and made remarks at a few, this one has particular significance for me, for all Americans. We are now in the midst of our first war of the new millennium, a war begun with an horrendous attack on our own soil witnessed by virtually all of us on live television, an attack that will never fade from our collective memory, a 911 wake up call that took the lives of more than 3000 innocent civilians, military personnel and public safety officers, an opening salvo that has once again, and inevitably, forced us to place tens of thousands of American troops in harm's way.

Since 911, dozens of additional military personnel have lost their lives serving our country in this new war. Their recent sacrifice, combined with the 911 loss of so many lives on American soil, lends special meaning to this Memorial Day. While I could not confirm this in preparing these remarks, this may be the first Memorial Day of the millennium to include American losses incurred during the new millennium.

In years past, many Americans did not share a personal memory of combat, of the bravery and sacrifice that so many, like my fallen friend BZ, have shown and given to our country. This Memorial Day is different. All Americans share searing images and memories of 911. 911 occurred on our soil, in our living rooms.

I was struck by the beginning and closing scenes of the movie Saving Private Ryan. The movie opens with an elderly World War II veteran, accompanied by his children and grandchildren, visiting an American gravesite in Normandy. The veteran is Private Ryan. He weeps as his memories overwhelm him. The movie then shifts to Omaha Beach, and I'm certain many of you who saw the movie were just as startled as I was by how realistic the passing bullets sounded. I hadn't heard that sound in years and had never heard it in a movie.

Once the beachhead is secured, the main character in the movie, a former English teacher now a grunt lieutenant, is placed in charge of a small party detailed to find and save Private Ryan. Virtually everyone assigned to the detail, including the lieutenant, dies saving Ryan. With the exception of the bullet sounds, pretty standard stuff for a Hollywood war movie. Not memorable - except for the dying lieutenant's last words to Ryan: Earn this.

I then understood the opening scene and the old man's tears. And I longed to know whether that old man, whether his children, whether his grandchildren, all of whom owed their very existence to the men of that detail, just as I owe mine to BZ, whether they, in the conduct of their lives, earned this.

We, every one of us who enjoys the freedom and wealth of this country, we are that old man, those children and grandchildren. Each and every one of us, directly like the old man or indirectly like the children, owe either our lives or our well being to a long line of American men and women, now numbering more than one million, who gave their lives in defense of their country or their community. Today, a day of remembrance for their sacrifice, it behooves each and every one of us to weep and to ask: Have we earned this? Do we, in the daily conduct of our lives, deserve the sacrifice made by those not here with us, those we honor and thank today? Have we earned this?

Each of us must answer that question in our own way. The men and women we honor here today showed no greater love. So I believe we can at least love our neighbors and accept, even cherish, sacrificing for the sake of others, even total strangers. To me, earning this means bearing sacrifices and inconveniences for the good of the whole, for our families, our communities, our nation, for strangers throughout the world, knowing that these sacrifices and inconveniences pale in comparison to the ultimate sacrifice made by those we remember and honor today. More concretely, I believe earning this means meeting our moral commitment to our surviving veterans and giving total respect, total support and total honor to those now in harm's way in service to our nation and the world.

Educational degrees, titles, big bank accounts, fancy houses, fast new cars – these things aren't true measures of self worth or real wealth. Honor. Commitment to family, community, country, to others throughout this world. Those are the real measures.

If I can help somebody as I pass along, then my living will not be in vain.

The lives of those we honor today were not lived in vain. They were given to help many others.

The English philosopher and political scientist John Stuart Mill wrote long ago War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling, [a belief that] nothing is worth war, is much worse. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing he cares about more than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free. . .

These courageous men and women we honor here today, each so different in heritage and background, shared Mill's belief that freedom is worth the fight and does not come without cost. They sacrificed personal comfort, safety and ultimately their lives in response to duty, honor, country, for the sake of an ideal.

Let me end by sharing with you an updated version of the last verse of an old, old song from central Europe.

A soldier buried long ago on a battlefield
Hears lovers laughing as they pass by.
And the soldier asks Are these not the voices of lovers
That love and remember me?
Not so, my hero, reply the lovers.
We are those that remember not.
For the spring has come and the earth has smiled,
And the dead must be forgotten.
Then the soldier speaks again from the deep, dark grave.
I am content.

Thank you for sharing your time today in honor of these special Americans who are content even if we forget them. They are not here. They are not here to receive our thanks. They are not here to judge our actions.

Let's earn their sacrifice in our daily lives, a sacrifice we can never fully repay.

Let's earn this.

God bless you all. God bless those who served. God bless those now in uniform, particularly those in harm's way. God bless those we honor today and their loved ones who suffered such loss for our benefit. And God bless the United States of America.

-Jim Marshall