Memorial Day, 2026

A version of this post was originally published on Memorial Day, May 25, 2025. I have made some minor edits for brevity, clarity, and because the world has changed.

You might see reminders today to pause, if only for a moment, to honor our service members who sacrificed their lives in defense of our nation. Certainly, we should do that. But on Memorial Day we are also asked to do a little bit more.

In the National Moment of Remembrance Act (36 U.S. Code, section 116), Congress laid out its intentions for Memorial Day:

• To pay tribute to individuals who made the ultimate sacrifice in service to the United States and their families
•  To take greater strides to appreciate their values, represented by their sacrifices
• For the federal government to encourage citizens to dedicate themselves to the values and principles for which those heroes of the United States died

So yes, remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice, and remember also what they died for. Remember what about this nation – or about this nation’s potential – was worth so high a cost. 

Values and principles

For this Memorial Day, I took a few minutes to consider the “values and principles for which those heroes of the United States died,” or at least the ones that I think they might have died for:

• Freedom of expression, assembly, and religion
• Economic freedom
• Protection from abuses of government power (for example, habeas corpus, protections against self-incrimination and illegal searches and seizures)
• Assumed innocence, until proven guilty
• Choice in our livelihoods, and even the opportunity to be self-employed
• Equal protection under the law, no matter who you are (there’s a long way to go until this is entirely true – but the fact that this nation has come so far over the last 250+ years speaks to the potential that exists here, as well as the effort required to realize it)
• The right to petition the government for redress of grievances
• Public support for the arts and sciences
• A free press to tell truth to power
• Free elections to hold power to account
• Free and appropriate public education, including public media supporting such education
• A social safety net, when life takes an unexpected turn
• Veterans programs to support those who served
• The ability to amend the constitution, allowing the nation to mature over time

This is not an exhaustive list, certainly. Take some time to think about your own list – I’m sure you will think of much more that I did not include on mine. 

Now remember what Congress charges us citizens to do: dedicate ourselves to those values and principles. 

A moment to pause, and a call to act

Indeed, Abraham Lincoln implored us to do this very thing when he spoke at Gettysburg in November of 1863: "It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

He asked us to take increased devotion to the cause to sustain government of, by, and for the people.

Today we honor those who died, but we also honor the promise of the nation they defended. We honor that promise through action.

A warning

In his farewell address in 1796, George Washington warned us about the danger of party politics: "The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation on the ruins of public liberty."

Here we are in May 2026 … how are we doing folks?

Today may we consider what we believe is great about this nation – what principles and values are worth defending. May we then consider them in today’s context. (Spoiler: All is not well.) Finally, may we ask ourselves how we can dedicate ourselves to those principles and values and commit do doing it. 

Our forebears and our honored dead expect nothing less.