It was an unintentionally well-rehearsed routine. I would call my father each Memorial Day. He was enjoying his retirement in Indiana, where he grew up. I was out in California, where I was born and raised. We would exchange comments on the previous day’s Indianapolis 500, and then I would say, “Happy Memorial Day ... not that it’s a happy day, is it Dad?” To which he would reply, “No, son. No, it is not.”

My father was a soldier. He did not set out to be one, but the world dictated otherwise back in the satanic onyx days of the early 1940s, and so he became a soldier. He fought long and well, huddled in his radio operator's station aboard a B-29 over Japan, focused on the task at hand while thinking about the young bride waiting for him back home again in Indiana. He did his job, and then he went home. This is the soldier's duty, after all: to fight long and well, do their job, and then go home to the place which, by doing their job, had been preserved as their home; theirs and everyone else's home.

Once in a while, my father would speak of those times. His eyes, usually sharp and clear, would shift to a faraway focus as he spoke of the friends made during those days who didn’t go home. He would remind me that no story or pictures could truly tell their tale. They, too, performed the soldier’s duty, preserving their home, which they would not see again.

My oldest brother was a soldier. He did not set out in life to be one, but the world dictated otherwise back in the insanity that was the 1960s, and so a soldier he became. He fought long and well, trading gunfire with unseen foes hiding in rice paddies and carrying his wounded buddies to safety, not noticing his own wounds until someone else pointed out his blood to him. He did his job, which, unlike his father's, was treated with contemptuous scorn at home, and then he went home. This is the soldier's duty, after all: to fight long and well, do their job, and then go home to the place their doing their job had preserved as their home, theirs and everyone else's home, even if the residents of that home hated him for doing his job.

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My father now rests in his Indiana home, peacefully waiting for the day when he and his fellow soldiers will receive their final order to come home to the place their Brother doing His job has preserved as their home. My brother rests near him, the two forever bound by the blood shared as father and son and the blood that was shed on their behalf by their brothers and God’s Son.

Today, remember my father and yours. Remember my brother and yours. Remember all the fathers and brothers, and yes, the mothers and daughters, who did not set out to be soldiers, but the world dictated otherwise, so they became soldiers. They fought long and well, doing their job, and then went home. This is the soldier's duty, after all: to fight long and well, do their job, and then go home to the place their doing their job has preserved as their home, be it the home they had known before as theirs and everyone else's, or the promised home their Heavenly Brother doing His job has preserved as their home. Remember especially those who entered their promised home while protecting the home they had known before, for without them, we would have no home. Remember them, and honor them.