“I’m not going to start wars. I’m going to stop wars.” — President Donald J. Trump, victory speech, November 2024.
There is a particular kind of silence that hangs over Memorial Day. It is not the jangly sounds of a backyard barbecue or the laughter of kids splashing in pools. For me, it is always quieter, heavier. It is the silence left behind with someone who never came home.
I know the silence.
My stepfather carried it back from Vietnam. So did my uncle. I have asked my uncle many times, but he will never talk about it to his journalist nephew, eager to understand more. “I just did my time and came home,” is all he will tell me. But there is a story — among many told by other family members when memories were fresh — about a fellow soldier who took my uncle’s foxhole and that foxhole is where the soldier perished.
My uncle made it home, but for a while he still saw and heard the enemy at night in the thick piney woods beyond the backyard. My stepfather earned two Purple Hearts in that same war that scarred his body and soul. But even after he returned home alive, parts of him remained overseas with the young men who did not.
I grew up in the shadow of Barksdale Air Force Base in Bossier City, La. It was where President George W. Bush, upon leaving an elementary school in Florida, stopped on Sept. 11, 2001, to affirm in a press briefing what we all knew: the United States was under a terrorist attack.
Around our house, military service was woven into everyday life. School field trips. Flyovers. Uniformed airmen in the community. We were proud of that base and proud of the men and women who served there. We still are.
And because of that upbringing, Memorial Day was never just another three-day weekend for me.
This year feels different.
On Memorial Day 2026, America once again finds itself in another war in the Middle East — this time with Iran — years after promises from the sitting president that such wars were behind us. Trump campaigned on ending foreign entanglements and avoiding new wars. Yet here we are. And that untruth, or whatever you want to call it, is bitter throat bile, to paraphrase President Ronald Reagan.
For months, Americans have watched escalating military strikes, warnings of expanded conflict and increasingly casual political rhetoric surrounding the war in Iran. We have heard the president use words like “excursion” and “skirmish.” That’s rich coming from a commander-in-chief with multiple Vietnam War deferments because of a medical diagnosis of bone spurs, according to numerous published reports.
Maybe this is why this Memorial Day feels unsettled to me. Not because Americans suddenly stopped honoring sacrifice. We have not. Rather, because war itself feels treated more casually than reverently by the people waging war.
War should never feel performative, and it should never be reduced to the level of videogame entertainment to support a talking point during the 24-hour news cycle.
A best practice of leadership is to encourage, inspire and make the case for sending young men and women to battle. It is not to stand at a podium and tell Americans that more of their loved ones will likely die. It’ll get worse before it gets better.
Behind every new update that a soldier has been lost is a real family member or loved one who just experienced one of the worst days of their lives.
That’s why we recognize Memorial Day.
My friend Julie, who lost a Marine brother-in-law in combat, believes her only son, a Marine, is currently deployed in the war zone in Iran. She lives with the reality of being a military mom and all it entails. I think about my stepfather and my uncle who brought home the ghosts of Vietnam. I think about the sadness that remains in my friend’s heart — even 40 years later — after the Beirut bombing.
Certainly, from where I sit, Americans are struggling to understand the purpose of the Iran War on Memorial Day 2026. At this writing, at least 13 American troops have died and more than 380 have been injured, according to Military Times. And I have not heard a suitable reason or a long-term strategy for this new war.
To be sure, young women and men who choose to serve are aware of the worst possible outcome. They deserve our respect for that courage. But they also deserve leaders who treat the decision to send them into combat with gravity, restraint and moral seriousness.
I still remember how astonished I was when the president reportedly referred to fallen American service members as “suckers” and “losers.” Trump’s callous dismissal of the military’s sacrifice remains in America’s history log. Whether or not Trump’s supporters dismiss those comments, many military families never forgot them.
My stepfather and my uncle surely never did. And maybe this is why Memorial Day 2026 is hitting differently with me.
Too much of our national conversation — especially among our elected officials — about war is missing the key element of humility. It’s too performative and too casual. Memorial Day is not about politicians. It is about honoring those who died on a beach in Europe, a jungle in Asia, or on a ship in the North Atlantic.
The least we can do is speak of war with the seriousness their sacrifice deserves.
Byron McCauley is a regional columnist for USA Today Co. Email him at bmccauley@usatodayco.com; call (513) 504-8915.
This article originally appeared on Battle Creek Enquirer: The honor our fallen heroes deserve | Opinion
Reporting by Byron McCauley, Holland Sentinel / Battle Creek Enquirer
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