Memorial Day will feel a little different this year, as across the country, communities are also preparing to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the adoption of our Declaration of Independence. It was the beginning of what some have called “the American Experiment.”

Even before that day there were those willing to die for what they believed this country was becoming. Data for American Revolutionary War deaths — 23,800 of them — usually begins with 1775.

After that, there have been at least 83 conflicts, battles, operations and wars in which members of the U.S. military have fought and some died. More than 1,308,468 have died according to one estimate.

They gave their lives in the name of what this country stood for in places such as Mexico, Haiti, the Phillipines, Europe, Japan, Vietnam, the Middle East (15 of them in Iran this year alone); or in wars here on our own soil against the Dakota or the Seminole … and, of course, against the Confederate States of America, for which nearly 300,000 also died, just 160 or so years ago.

Our experiment is not perfect. But men and women across the generations have died for this country — for the people in it — because what we hoped we would be was very much worth fighting for.

They didn’t fight for pool parties and backyard BBQs, parades or three-day weekends. (Though we are free to enjoy those things, because of them.) They fought and died for a land in which the founders understood we are all created equal and with unalienable rights. They fought for a land in which those rights and freedoms are precious — so much so that we are willing to stand up for our allies too, when theirs are threatened.

Those who sacrificed themselves in military service to this country are honored when we remember they died so that we would be free in a country that lives up to all of the best aspirations of men who could never have foreseen what they were breathing to life.

We owe it to those who were willing to fight and die — for us — to ensure the American Experiment thrives.

And we owe them our gratitude — more than a moment of silence (if they are given even that) — on this weekend of celebrations. We owe them a promise that they will not have given their lives in vain, but that we will keep working to become the best we know this country can be.

“And they who for their country die shall fill an honored grave, for glory lights the soldier’s tomb, and beauty weeps the brave.”

— Poet Joseph Rodman Drake

“The patriot’s blood is the seed of Freedom’s tree.”

– Poet Thomas Campbell