Cities across Florida are holding events this Memorial Day weekend to honor military members who were died in service to their country.
The president typically lays a wreath at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.
War death has touched every state in the country, and Florida, home to nine national military cemeteries, has endured a great deal of that loss.
These are the conflicts that were the costliest to U.S. service members from Florida:
World War II: Distinguished service in the Pacific
Florida lost an estimated 4,600 service members in World War II, with 3,086 of those deaths coming in combat, according to figures from the Florida Department of State.
Members of the Florida National Guard deployed to the Pacific theater of the war. Several units 124th Infantry Regiment earned a distinguished unit citation for service in the Philippines and New Guinea.
Other Florida National Guard battalions were honored for their World War II service, and some Florida service members participated in the D-Day landings in Normandy, Operation Market Garden and the Battle of the Bulge as part of the famed 82nd Airborne Division.
Vietnam War: A Jacksonville hero
Multiple sources, including the National Archives, put the number of Florida’s Vietnam War dead at 1,954. The remains of more than 50 service members have not yet been recovered.
Members of the Florida National Guard were among the first to deploy to Vietnam when then-President Lyndon Johnson surged troops there.
Jacksonville native Clifford Chester Sims, a U.S. Army staff sergeant, used his body to shield his men from a booby trap explosive device that had been set off as his squad fought during the Tet Offensive on February 21, 1968.
Sims was posthumously honored with the Medal of Honor on December 2, 1969, one of fewer than 100 Black service members who have received that honor. He is buried in Barrancas National Cemetery in Pensacola.
World War I: Tragedy for the USS Tampa
The original estimate for the number of Floridians who died in World War I was 1,219. That was the number honored when Memorial Park in Jacksonville was dedicated in 1924.
More recent research has pushed the estimated World War I dead of Florida to 1,700.
Floridians accounted for 60 of the 131 service members killed when a German U-boat torpedoed the USS Tampa off the coast of the United Kingdom on September 26, 1918.
Korean War: All-Latino regiment stirs pride
Estimates are that 577 to 583 Floridians died in the Korean War.
Central Florida cities and counties have honored the men of the U.S. Army’s 65th Infantry Regiment, a Puerto Rican unit called the Borinqueneers in honor of the Arawak Native Taino name for Puerto Rico, which is Borinquen.
The heroics of the Borinqueneers, including earning the Congressional Gold Medal for bravey and the Presidential Unit Citation for their service in Korea, has been a source of inspiration and pride for Latinos.
The 65th has been honored during a parade in Orlando, had a post office named after it in Kissimmee and a park named in its honor in Buenaventura Lakes.
Second Gulf War: Sacrifice and Loss
Operation Iraqi Freedom, the Second Gulf War, lasted from 2003 to 2011 and cost the lives of 196 Florida service members, more than were lost during the First Gulf War and in Afghanistan combined.
Members of the Florida National Guard deployed to Kuwait and Afghanistan, and several Florida service members were recognized for bravery in the conflict.
Army Sgt. 1st Class Paul R. Smith, a Texas native whose family moved to Tampa when he was a child, was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor in 2005 for manning a mounted machine gun under intense fire from Iraqis and keeping a military aid station crowded with more than 100 wounded service members from being overrun.
Smith was killed in the action, his armored vest peppered with 13 bullet holes, but the military credits him for saving more than 100 lives.
Smith was cremated and his ashes where spread in the Gulf of Mexico, where he enjoyed fishing.
According to an account in The Atlantic, Smith had written to his parents before his deployment, telling them: “There are two ways to come home — stepping off the plane and being carried off the plane. It doesn’t matter how I come home, because I am prepared to give all that I am to ensure that all my boys make it home.”
Wayne Washington is a journalist covering education and Riviera Beach development for The Palm Beach Post. You can reach him at wwashington@pbpost.com. Help support our work; subscribe today.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: For Memorial Day, know how many Floridians died in U.S. conflicts
Reporting by Wayne Washington, Palm Beach Post / Palm Beach Post
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