For me, Memorial Day isn’t a date in May only. It’s also March 25th.

That was the day in 2007, in Iraq, when my platoon was on a mission inside a town being terrorized by insurgents. We’d been asked to restore security there and protect civilian life. I instructed my subordinate leaders to establish a blocking position as the rest of the squadron moved into mutually supporting positions. I got onto a radio call with my commander. Minutes into the call, something didn’t feel right. I left the radio call to ensure our security was tight.

As I moved across an intersection to inspect what my NCOs had implemented, a suicide bomber dashed from a gathering crowd and ran towards some of my men. It was a situation where time slowed down in the face of a split-second ethical dilemma. As we raised our weapons to defend ourselves, the bomb detonated right in front of me. It killed several innocent children nearby—and four of my soldiers: Jason Swiger, Anthony White, Jason Nunez, and Orlando Gonzalez.

I live with that. I accept my role. And I mourn them. That moment burned into me the truth that lives can be lost at any moment. It also burned into me the idea that those moments can only come when they overwhelm all diligence, preparation, and training. Lost lives must not be in vain; they must only be spent in defense of the highest ethical values. So, since that moment, I’ve attempted to live and lead in a way that would make those four soldiers proud of me.

My approach has been simple: there is no such thing as too much preparation, too much checking, too much discipline, or too much compassion when it comes to protecting your comrades.

Fast forward to Syria, 2023. My squadron arrives, and it’s 110 degrees in the desert. Some sharp engineers flag that our bunkers aren’t fortified enough to survive a drone strike. They ask me to divert manpower to fix it: 500 soldiers filling sandbags by hand, in brutal heat.

People complained. Some wondered why they couldn’t “take it easy—it’s already so hard here.” They wondered why they had to follow every little rule. Why we were worried about a drone strike when one hadn’t happened in years. “What’s the big deal?” they asked.

Then, after the October 7th attacks, an Iranian drone carrying almost 100 pounds of explosives hit one of those very bunkers—directly. 

Thirty of my soldiers were inside.

Because we’d done the hard thing—the right thing—every one of them walked away. They were bloody, but they were alive. And they owed their lives to their peers who demanded safer bunkers.

We didn’t let March 25th happen again.

That’s what leadership means to me. It’s not about being comfortable. It’s about choosing the hard right over the easy wrong. It’s not even about authority. It’s about living with moral clarity, owning your decisions, and preparing your people for the worst day of their lives—so they survive it. That’s love.

The Army gave me a lot. The best it gave me is my wife—who I met after coming home from that first tour in Iraq. Second-best is the clarity to understand that service is about more than defending ground. It’s about trust, discipline, integrity, unity, and compassion.

I know that Swiger, Nunez, White, and Gonzalez would say the same. They wouldn’t want to be remembered as victims of war. They would want to be remembered as professionals who looked out for people when it mattered most. They were the finest human beings I’ve ever known.

So this Memorial Day, if you want to honor the memory of our fallen, don’t just light a grill or post a flag emoji. Be like them: better, kinder people. Look out for each other. Rise above petty bitterness. That’s what they did. That’s how they lived—and died.

Honor their sacrifice by being the kind of American worth dying for.

Michael Anderson is a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army and a Fletcher School Ph.D. candidate.

The views here expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the U.S. Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. government.

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