In Memorial Day remarks on Monday afternoon, President Joe Biden reflected on the lives and sacrifice of American soldiers who have fallen in the line of duty.
“They chose a life of purpose,” the commander-in-chief said. “It sounds corny, like a Memorial Day speech, but I mean it from the bottom of my heart. They chose a life of purpose.”
The remarks — delivered at Arlington National Cemetery — occurred on the first Memorial Day after the two-decade conflict in Afghanistan ended which, combined with the Iraq conflict, claimed the lives of 7,054 American service members.
“They lie here in glory and honor … in graves across our country, in towns large and small — America’s beloved daughters and sons who dared all, risked all, and gave all to preserve and defend an idea unlike any other in human history: the idea of the United States of America,” Biden said. “And today, as a nation, we undertake a sacred ritual: to reflect and to remember.”
Biden noted that May 30 marks the seven-year anniversary of the death of his eldest son, Beau Biden, who served in the Delaware Army National Guard and deployed to Iraq while serving as the state’s attorney general.
“He didn’t die in the line of duty. He came home from Iraq with cancer. It was a horrific cancer that stole … him from us,” Biden said. “But still, it always feels to me on Memorial Day — I see him, not as he was the last time I held his hand, but the day I pinned his bars on him as a second lieutenant. … Days like this bring back, before your eyes, their smile and their laugh. And the last conversation you had.”
Biden emphasized that Americans have a duty to care for the families of service members “when they return home and when they don’t.”
“This is an obligation that unites Americans and brings us together — to make sure the women and men who are willing to lay down their lives for us get the very best from us in return,” Biden said, adding that lawmakers are seeking to provide healthcare services for veterans impacted by toxic exposures overseas. “We don’t know how many Americans and service members may have died because of what they were exposed to on the battlefield. The toxic smoke from burn pits near where they were based — burn pits that incinerated the wastes of war, medical and hazardous material, jet fuel, and so much more.”
Biden also paid tribute to the Ukrainians currently fending off an invasion from Russian forces.
“Freedom has never been free. Democracy has always required champions,” he said. “And, today, in the perennial struggle for democracy and freedom, Ukraine and its people are on the frontlines fighting to save their nation.”
“But their fight is part of a larger fight that unites all people. It is a fight that so many of the patriots, whose eternal rest is here in these hallowed grounds, were part of,” Biden continued. “A battle between democracy and autocracy, between liberty and repression, between appetites and ambition of a few who forever seek to dominate the lives and liberties of many.”
Biden told listeners that “the soul of America” is “worth the sacrifice.”
“Our memorial to them must not be just a day when we pause and pray, it must be a daily commitment to act, to come together, to be worthy of the price that was paid.”