Honoring our fallen heroes

A little more than a year ago, in a remote province in Afghanistan far from his home in Hungry Horse, Pfc. Nicholas Cook stood tall in the face of withering enemy fire.

The young soldier stood up and delivered a fierce hail of bullets from his machine gun to help save soldiers pinned down by insurgents.

His fellow soldiers survived.

He didn’t.

“Without him doing that, I don’t think a lot of the first squad would be here,” another soldier said.

The Bible puts it succinctly: “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.”

That’s what great soldiers do and have been doing since this country was founded. And that’s why we celebrate Memorial Day.

It is because of the Nick Cooks of this country that we proudly raise the stars and stripes on Monday.

It is because of the thousands upon thousands of his fellow soldiers — before and after his death in combat — who, too, have made the ultimate sacrifice, that we gather in hushed cemeteries and solemn parades to pay tribute to these guardians of our freedom.

It is because challenges to the American values we hold dear often require a vigorous response that we should never forget the cost of that response in human lives.

Memorial Day originally was called Decoration Day when it first was observed in 1868 as a time to decorate the graves of fallen soldiers.

This year, the day has special meaning for many local families, who will again visit local cemeteries to honor the fallen. And Nick Cook was recently awarded a Silver Star (for gallantry in action) to recognize his valor in Afghanistan. (See story in Monday’s Inter Lake.)

As we pause on this Memorial Day 2011 to give deserved thanks to those who died in service to us and our country, let us also remember that the conflict in which Nick Cook died is not yet over and there undoubtedly will be more names to add to the memorials of heroes who died for America.