One day to remember, 364 to prove you meant it



Monday night the grill cools, the flag comes down, and you crash on that “half-off” mattress you never planned to buy. By Tuesday morning, America is already scrolling to the next thing. But the moms in Section 60 at Arlington National Cemetery aren’t scrolling — and neither should we.

Treating Memorial Day like a red, white, and blue props department proves a sad stat from a poll conducted by the National World War II Museum a few years ago: Barely one in five Americans could explain what the holiday is actually for.

We must teach the next generation to remember on purpose. If your kids can quote Marvel but not MacArthur, that’s on us.

So let’s talk about Tuesday morning in America and the 364 days that follow. What does it look like to honor our war dead all year long?

We must price-check freedom — every day. Scripture is always an appropriate place to start. In John 15:13 the Bible teaches us, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” This verse is memorialized on headstones form sea to shining sea.

President Reagan reminded the nation at Arlington in 1982 that “freedom is not bought cheaply. It has a cost; it imposes a burden.” That burden extends beyond military service. It demands vigilance. It requires raising children who understand why our flag is folded 13 times — not just how many “likes” a TikTok dance racks up.

We must finish the unfinished work.Abraham Lincoln’s address at Gettysburg was delivered five months after that battlefield fell silent, long after the trending topic had shifted. He challenged the living “to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.”

Our unfinished work today is cultural: defending truth in classrooms, fostering marriages that can withstand deployment, protecting girls’ sports from idealogues who would erase biological reality, and pushing back when elites sneer at patriotism as passe.

We must guard the souls who come home. The Department of Veterans Affairs’ most recent suicide-prevention report still lands with a thud: An average of 17.6 veterans take their own lives each day. We flunk Remembrance 101.

RELATED: ‘So that others may live’: The true meaning of the holiday

APCortizasJr via iStock/Getty Images

We cannot claim to honor the fallen if we abandon the brothers- and sisters-in-arms who made it home only to fight invisible wars. That means supporting faith-based counseling (which bureaucrats keep trying to sideline), turning the VA paperwork morass into a mission, helping veterans find meaningful and rewarding post-service careers, and checking on the veteran down the street instead of waiting for Washington to do it.

We must restore the faith they fought for.According to Pew Research, eight in ten Americans now believe religion is losing influence in public life, and roughly half say that’s a bad thing.

The men and women we memorialize took an oath to defend a nation “under God.” When pastors self-censor, when corporate America flies a Pride flag over Old Glory, and when our schools swap the Bible for the 1619 Project, we’re torching the spiritual scaffolding those soldiers died to protect. God bless America.

We must teach the next generation to remember on purpose.If your kids can quote Marvel but not MacArthur (“No man is entitled to the blessings of freedom unless he be vigilant in its preservation”), that’s on us. Take them to a war memorial in July, not just on the last Monday in May. Tell them why “Taps” is 24 notes of holy silence. Ask a Gold Star family to dinner and let the conversation run long. The goal isn’t to glorify war; it’s to glorify virtue — courage, duty, sacrifice — so that when the recruiters call, our sons and daughters know what they’re signing up to defend.

We must live gratefully and live out loud.Gratitude is not a Hallmark feeling; it’s a muscle you flex in public. Fly the flag correctly (sunrise to sunset, illuminated at night). Stand for the anthem even when the stadium lump next to you kneels or leaves his hat on. Support companies that still believe in America like Blaze Media and my podcast, “We the People with Gates Garcia.” And pray for our leaders — yes, even the ones making it hard.

We must trade hashtag for habits. Hashtags flicker; habit forges character. Start small: Write a letter to a deployed Marine, sign up for a volunteer shift at the VA hospital, make a family pledge to read one military biography a year; and if you are blessed with means, cut a check to a veterans’ nonprofit organization. Imagine 20 million American households stepping up to do that. The culture would shift faster than Congress could rename the next great American holiday.

The 365-day test: I love a good cookout more than anyone. That’s part of the freedom they bought us. But the measure of our gratitude isn’t how loudly we celebrate on one Monday — it’s how deliberately we lie on all the rest. Reagan’s challenge, Lincoln’s unfinished work, and Christ’s supreme definition of love converge on a single question the fallen silently ask us every dawn: Are you living a life worthy of my sacrifice?

One day a year it’s fine to say, “Happy Memorial Day.” But on those other 364, make sure you live like you’re worth that sacrifice.

This Summer, Bring Back Adult Swim

With the arrival of Memorial Day weekend, and with it the return of recreational swimming in neighborhood and community pools across America, a curious thought crossed my mind. Whatever happened to adult swim? It’s a memory now as distant as the taste of Steak-umms fresh off a snack bar’s greasy grill, or the saccharine sound […]

The helicopter went down in Gia Dinh. The grief never left.



Although my own family never lost a loved one in war, my childhood best friend, “Buddy,” did. His uncle Jack was killed in Vietnam in 1967. More specifically, Buddy’s mother — my “emergency backup mom” growing up — lost her kid brother in that war. She remains part of my life to this day.

Buddy was too young at the time to remember Jack or the news of his death. But Jack’s picture hung on the wall of their house, and his memory quietly lingered. The family held him in reverence.

Grandfather didn’t just want to remember Jack — he needed to believe his son’s sacrifice mattered.

As the 1970s turned into the 1980s, Jack began to feel like a figure from a distant past — rarely discussed except on Memorial Day and increasingly removed from the rhythm of everyday life.

Then, in the early 1990s, our two families planned a multigenerational beach vacation on the Gulf Coast. Buddy and I were now young adults. His grandparents — Jack’s parents — joined us from out of state.

In that rented beach house, I finally understood the depth of their loss.

Twenty-five years after losing his only son, Buddy’s grandfather still talked about Jack often. He told stories about Jack’s strength of character, his patriotism, and how much he would have loved to be with us. He said Jack would have been a great father. He wished Buddy had cousins — the kids Jack never lived to father — playing with us on the beach.

One morning, as Buddy, my dad, and I packed up for a fishing trip, Grandfather told us that Jack had loved to fish. He would have joined us, if only he could have.

Each night at supper, Grandfather bowed his head and thanked God for the years they had with Jack. He prayed that Jack would remain in God’s care until the family could one day be reunited in heaven.

He also talked about the war. About the helicopter shot down in Gia Dinh Province. About the impossible task of finding meaning in that loss. He didn’t just want to remember Jack — he needed to believe his son’s sacrifice mattered.

Buddy’s grandmother cried often during that trip. The grief never left her, not even after 25 years. It stayed with her until the day she died. I pray she and her husband are now reunited with Jack. Buddy’s mother still mourns the brother she lost 58 years ago.

We are blessed to live in a country where men like Jack give everything they have — willingly — for a cause greater than themselves. May God comfort those they left behind. And may He give us the wisdom and courage to build a world where fewer families must endure such loss.

Gold Star grief never ends — remember the fallen this Memorial Day



Your son has been a Marine for what feels like an eternity. Only those who have watched their children deploy into war zones can truly understand why time seems to freeze in worry. What begins as concern turns to panic, then helplessness. You live suspended in a silent winter, where days blur and dread becomes your constant companion.

Then, in an instant, it happens. What you don’t know yet is that your child — your most precious gift — fell in combat 60 seconds ago.

This is a day for sacred remembrance, for honoring those who laid down their lives.

While you go about your day, unaware, military protocol kicks into motion. Notification must happen within eight hours. Officers are dispatched. A chaplain joins them. A medic may accompany them in case the grief is too much to bear.

Three figures arrive at your door. One asks your name. Then, by protocol, they ask to enter your home. You already know what’s coming. You sit down. He looks you in the eye and says:

The commandant of the Marine Corps has entrusted me to express his deep regret that your son John was killed in action on Friday, March 28. The commandant and the United States Marine Corps extend their deepest sympathy to you and your family in your loss.

This moment has played out thousands of times across American soil. In 2003 alone — just two years after 9/11 — 312 families endured it. In 2007, 847 American service members died in combat. In 2008, 352. In 2009, 346. The list goes on. And with every name, a family became a Gold Star family.

Honor the fallen

For most Americans, Memorial Day means backyard barbecues, family gatherings, maybe a trip to the lake or a sweet Airbnb. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying these things. But we must never forget why we can.

Ask any veteran who lived when others did not, and you’ll understand: Memorial Day is not just another holiday. It is a solemn day set apart for reverence.

So this weekend, reach out to a Gold Star family. Acknowledge their pain. Ask about their son or daughter. Let them know they’re not alone.

This is a day for sacred remembrance, for honoring those who laid down their lives — not for accolades but for love of country and the preservation of liberty. “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).

They died for the Constitution, for our shared American ideals, and the worst thing we could do now would be to betray those ideals in a spirit of rage or division.

We cannot dishonor their sacrifice by abandoning the very principles they died to protect — equal justice, the rule of law, the enduring promise of liberty.

This Memorial Day, let us remember the fallen. Let us honor their families. Let us recommit ourselves to the cause they gave everything for: the American way of life.

They are the best of us.

Want more from Glenn Beck? Get Glenn's FREE email newsletter with his latest insights, top stories, show prep, and more delivered to your inbox.

The Army called him a handicap. History calls him a hero.



You’ve probably never heard of Phil Larimore — a teenage hero of World War II whose story sounds too improbable to be true. But behind the unbelievable details stands a real young man with the leadership of Dick Winters (“Band of Brothers”), the resilience of Louis Zamperini (“Unbroken”), and the courage of Desmond Doss (“Hacksaw Ridge”).

Born in 1925, Philip B. Larimore Jr. excelled at outdoor pursuits — hiking, camping, horsemanship, sharpshooting, and hunting. But he also struggled with discipline and behavior, prompting his parents to send him to military school at age 13. There, Phil found his purpose. He emerged as a standout cadet and natural leader, graduating with honors shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.

If Dad could speak to us this Memorial Day, I believe he would ask for just one thing: Tell the stories of those who served.

At 17, he became the youngest cadet up to that point to complete the Army’s demanding Officer Candidate School. Days after his 18th birthday, he received his commission — becoming the youngest Army officer in the war. He then trained intensively with the 82nd Airborne.

By early 1944, Phil had landed on the beachhead at Anzio, Italy, with the 3rd Infantry Division. He had just turned 19.

A survivor

He fought in frontline combat almost immediately. He first led an ammunition and pioneer platoon, working shoulder to shoulder with his men. At night, often deep in no man’s land, Phil defused mines, strung barbed wire, delivered supplies, and engaged in brutal combat — sometimes hand to hand — as he advanced through Italy and into southern France.

During that phase of the war, the average life expectancy for a junior officer on the front lines was 21 days. Phil survived 415.

Days after his 20th birthday, he was promoted to company commander, the Army’s youngest at that post. He went on to become one of the most highly decorated junior officers, receiving every valor medal the Army awarded except the Medal of Honor — including the Distinguished Service Cross, two Silver Stars, two Bronze Stars, three Purple Hearts, and three Presidential Unit Citations. His bravery included volunteering to fly 200 miles behind enemy lines to find where Hitler had hidden the world-famous Lipizzaner stallions — a top-secret mission that led General George Patton to authorize Operation Cowboy to save the breed from extinction.

On April 8, 1945 — just one month before VE Day — Phil learned that a squad of his men were pinned down by more than 120 German soldiers. Without hesitation, he jumped on the back of a tank and coolly manned a .50-caliber machine gun under relentless enemy fire. He wiped out three German gun nests and scattered the surrounding troops. A sniper’s bullet shattered his leg before he could return to cover.

Surgeons in a field hospital amputated his right leg. Phil was then flown home to an Army hospital, joining more than 15,000 soldiers recovering from major limb loss. Army policy at the time mandated automatic discharge for all amputee officers after rehabilitation. Phil refused to accept it. He appealed the policy, calling it unjust, unfair, and unethical.

A shattering setback

During his appeal hearing on April 15, 1947, Phil discovered exactly how Army brass viewed amputee officers. One colonel told him, “You’re a handicap to the Army. You’re a highly decorated cripple — but still a cripple.” Another added, “The Army doesn’t need one-legged handicaps,” and “Amputee officers simply don’t have a place in our Army.”

The board denied his appeal by a single vote. Phil received an honorable discharge with the rank of major — at just 22 years old.

Though the Army later reversed the policy in 1950, the damage had been done. Phil’s self-image was shattered. His promising military career had been stolen — not only by a German sniper, but by the Army and country he had faithfully served and loved. He fell into despair and contemplated ending his life.

Fortunately, he turned to an Army chaplain for help. With the support of family, friends, and his faith, Phil rebuilt his sense of purpose and began healing.

I’m the oldest of Phil’s four sons. He never spoke about the war. Only after he and my mother celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary did I ask what it felt like to be a hero.

“Two million men fought in Europe,” he replied. “I was one of over 500,000 American casualties. But more than 100,000 are buried there. Those are the real heroes. Not me!”

A role model for generations

Dad’s quiet but steady faith, humility, and lifelong service to others became a model — not just for my brothers and me but for the many students and Boy Scouts he mentored over the decades. Several even named their first sons Philip.

After retiring, Dad made peace with his past and with his Creator. The nightmares faded. The stench of war no longer haunted him. He died peacefully in his sleep on Oct. 31, 2003. He was 78.

After 15 years of research and writing, I completed my biography of him — “At First Light” — first published in 2022. The book led to his posthumous inductions into the Army’s Officer Candidate School Hall of Fame and the 3rd Infantry Division Hall of Fame, alongside legends like Audie Murphy and Generals Dwight D. Eisenhower, George C. Marshall, and Lucian K. Truscott.

After his most recent induction, I visited his grave. I thought: Dad, I always loved being your son. Now more than ever, I’m honored by it.

If he could speak to us this Memorial Day, I believe he would ask for just one thing: Tell the stories of those who served. Tell the stories of those who gave everything on the altar of war — those who sacrificed their tomorrows so we might have our todays.

And above all, remember the cost. The freedoms and liberties they preserved must not only be appreciated — they must be wisely stewarded.

A Marine’s Memorial Day message: Don’t forget the price



This weekend, we observe Memorial Day, a national day of remembrance first established by General John A. Logan’s “General Order No. 11,” issued on May 5, 1868, by the Grand Army of the Republic. The order declared:

The 30th day of May 1868 is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers and otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies lie in almost every city, village and hamlet churchyard in the land.

Logan’s order codified a practice that was already widespread across the country. In the years following the Civil War, Americans from both the North and South began gathering to honor the fallen. Logan provided that instinct with formal significance and established a national calendar.

In 1998, while serving as a professor at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, I had the honor of delivering the city’s annual Memorial Day address at City Hall. In those remarks, I warned that the true meaning of the holiday was slipping away.

Memorial Day permits us to enlarge the individual soldier’s view — giving broader meaning to the sacrifice that was accepted by some but offered by all.

Memorial Day had become little more than a three-day weekend. For many, it marked the start of summer — just another excuse for a cookout. But that was never the intent.

The holiday was established to solemnly reflect on the lives lost in service to the country. It offered catharsis for those who fought and survived. And it served as a national promise to remember those who gave everything so that the republic — and the principles that sustain it — might live.

A long history of sacrifice

I argued that Americans have forgotten how to honor their war heroes and remember their war dead. My friend and fellow Marine “Bing” West made the point forcefully in his powerful book on Fallujah, “No True Glory.” Stories of battlefield courage, he wrote, must “be recorded and read by the next generation. Unsung, the noblest deed will die.”

During my remarks, I recalled acts of heroism from the Civil War, World War II, and Vietnam. I spoke about a grieving mother who had written to me after her son — one of my Marines — was killed in Vietnam in May 1969. I asked, rhetorically: Why do men like those Marines under my command willingly fight and die?

Glen Gray offered one answer in “The Warriors: Reflections on Men in Battle”:

Numberless soldiers have died, more or less willingly, not for country or honor or religious faith or for any other abstract good, but because they realized that by fleeing their posts and rescuing themselves, they would expose their companions to greater danger. Such loyalty to the group is the essence of fighting morale.

Gray’s insight matches my experience. In the heat of combat, soldiers don’t talk about ideology. They think about each other. They fight to protect their brothers.

And yet, while the individual soldier’s focus narrows to survival and loyalty, Memorial Day offers us the chance to widen that lens. It helps us see the larger meaning of sacrifice — accepted by some but offered by all.

Memorial Day gives the nation a chance to recognize those sacrifices and validate them through the only lens that matters: the founding principles of the American republic.

‘Mystic chords of memory’

I noted in 1998 that Pericles, in his famous funeral oration during the Peloponnesian War, gave meaning to the Athenian dead by praising the excellence of Athens. He honored their sacrifice by affirming the civilization they died defending.

President Abraham Lincoln did something similar four months after the Battle of Gettysburg. At the dedication of the cemetery there, he expanded on what he had previously called the “mystic chords of memory” in his first inaugural address — those chords stretching “from every battlefield and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land.”

Lincoln gave universal meaning to the particular deaths on that hallowed ground. He allowed Americans to understand Memorial Day through the lens of Independence Day — to see the end of those soldiers’ lives in light of the nation’s beginning and the purpose of the American republic.

I argued that the deaths at Gettysburg, throughout the Civil War, and in all of America’s wars must be understood in relation to the founding principles laid out in the Declaration of Independence. Throughout history, countless brave soldiers have died fighting for causes that were unjust. Americans, by contrast, are fortunate. We can anchor the sacrifice of our fallen to a moral proposition: that all men are created equal.

Some critics accused me of glorifying war — of sentimentalizing conflict, justifying unjust campaigns, and trivializing death. But that critique misses the point. Soldiers enlist for many reasons. But almost all are motivated, at least in part, by a sense of duty, honor, and love of country.

That love of country — patriotism — is under constant attack. Critical race theory and the 1619 Project insist that America’s founding was corrupt and its principles invalid. But they’re wrong. A country built on decent principles, however imperfect its journey, remains a cause worth defending — and, if necessary, dying for.

My intention was never to trivialize individual loss. The death of a soldier marks the end of youth, promise, and joy. No speech or philosophy can console the family left behind. The mother who wrote to me after losing her Marine son in Vietnam carried a grief no words could ease.

Her anguish reminded me of Kipling’s “Epitaphs of the War,” especially the fourth verse, “An Only Son”:

“I have slain none but my mother;
She (blessing her slayer) died of grief for me.”

Kipling, too, lost his only son in World War I.

But as Oliver Wendell Holmes said in his Memorial Day address of 1884:

Grief is not the end of all. I seem to hear the funeral march become a paean. I see beyond the forest the moving banners of a hidden column. Our dead brothers still live for us and bid us think of life, not death — of life to which in their youth they lent the passion and joy of the spring. As I listen, the great chorus of life and joy begins again, and amid the awful orchestra of seen and unseen powers and destinies of good and evil, our trumpets sound once more a note of daring, hope, and will.

So by all means, have that burger this weekend. Enjoy the cookout. Go to the beach. But also take some time to remember to honor those who died to make your weekend possible.

This Flag Day Should Include An ‘Appeal To Heaven’ For Patriotism

This Flag Day prompts us to reflect on the extreme dangers ahead and 'Appeal to Heaven' for more communities to join in a patriotic revival.

Ilhan Omar and Cori Bush humiliated; confuse Memorial Day with Veterans' Day



Reps. Ilhan Omar and Cori Bush commemorated Memorial Day by making it clear that they are completely ignorant of the meaning of Memorial Day.

The pair appeared to mix up the holiday with Veterans' Day in since-deleted tweets on X, formerly known as Twitter.

“On Memorial Day, we honor the heroic men and women who served our country,” Omar wrote before the post was taken down. “We owe them more than our gratitude — they have more than earned access to quality mental health services, job opportunities, housing assistance, and the benefits they were promised.”

“This Memorial Day and every day, we honor our veterans in St. Louis. We must invest in universal healthcare, affordable housing, comprehensive mental health services, and educational and economic opportunities for our veterans as we work to build a world free of war and violence,” Bush wrote in a similar post.

While Omar and Bush clearly didn’t understand the meaning of the holiday, social media users on X did — correcting them, sometimes brutally, in the comments.

“They don’t know our history, they pervert our history, they’re holding high political offices without understanding what this country is, what it’s traditions are,” Jason Whitlock of "Fearless" tells Delano Squires, adding, “I just find this troubling and disturbing that we have so little connection to our own history.”

Squires says he “wasn’t particularly surprised.”

“I think they are probably more representative of the average American than we would like to acknowledge. I think a lot of people tend to conflate Memorial Day with Veterans' Day,” he explains, adding, “The fact that these are elected officials, obviously we hold them to a higher standard, but I’m not particularly surprised.”


Want more from Jason Whitlock?

To enjoy more fearless conversations at the crossroads of culture, faith, sports, and comedy with Jason Whitlock, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

America Is Still Worth Fighting For

Remember our fallen heroes, honor those who answered the call, and most importantly teach our children the value of freedom.