First Regiment of Dragoons
26 March 2006
D-1-1 Cavalry - Memorial Service
Las Vegas, NV
When you go to war you check your life at the door. If you are lucky you get it back when you leave.
All of us know the stresses of combat and of not knowing if you will live or die. No one is truly safe in warthe grunt gets killed in an ambush, the flight crew gets shot down, and the company clerk dies in a rocket attack.
No one that is here today will claim that they survived due to their own tactical brilliance. We survived by luck and skill but mostly because of the allegiance of our comrades. Anyone here today has and would again willingly risk it all for a comrade in need. No other bond that I have found among men is as strong.
Those of us who got our lives back at the door have two responsibilities to those who died:
The first is not to waste the incredible gift we have been given. A life wasted is in ways worse than a life lost. On this issue, I believe we have made the grade. The people I have met here after all of these years are well grounded, successful and happy people. Thank you to our wives and families for saving us from ourselves and helping us to build a good life. We are richly blessed.
The second responsibility to the dead is to never forget them and their incredible sacrifice. The cost is staggering: lives that never were; friends and families carrying on without you; parents mourning you daily until their own deaths; marriages, children and grandchildren that never will be. Contributions and companionship that is forever lost.
You are long dead but are daily remembered by your parents, families, friends and those of us that are your comrades.
Those of us that were chosen to live know the pain of your loss and our duty to make a difference with the gift of life that we enjoy.
We honor your memory.
We remember your bravery and sacrifice.
We pray for your families and friends.
We will never forget.
--Service given by Keith Aakre