Since the beginning of this country, actually, since before we were actually a country, from the Revolutionary War all the way to present time, there have been approximately 1.1 million American service members who have died for what we call America today. That's our freedoms That a lot of us take for granted. It's our well-being for the safety that we have in this country, for people to come here and live the American dream. If you take that 1.1 million and you turn that into a percentage of just today's population, there are an estimated 366 million American citizens living in the United States today. If you just took the 1.1 million from the conception of this country until now, not including all the people that have come and gone and lived in this country, past just today, it would only be less than 0.3% of the population. That should be our most cherished, honored class of people to ever exist in America. Think about that. 1.1 million men and women service members have died for what we have today. I'll tell you a story. It was late September 2005. I went on my first deployment to Afghanistan. I was with SEAL Team 2.

This was just three months after June 28th. For those of you that don't know, June 28th was Operation Red Wings. It was the biggest loss the SEAL teams had ever experienced in that specific moment in time. Usually when you deploy the team that's in country, there's a big turnover. The team that's in country, they do a turnover to the new team that's going to take their place. And you talk about what What works in combat? What doesn't work? What missions were they running? What bad guys are we after? All of that stuff. Usually takes least a week. Except this time, there was no brief. There was no brief because there was no one left alive to do that turnover. They were all dead except one. And so the one brief that What he did get was from a junior intelligence officer. What that brief consisted of was one He read Marcus Littrell's after-action reports on what happened that day. It was a Starts a reminder of what we might be getting ourselves into. In the second part of that brief, he showed us a propaganda video that Taliban had created as a recruitment video. In that video was footage of the actual gunfight that went down on June 28.

There was footage of them shooting our helicopters down. They went in to save the four operators that were on the ground. But what stuck out to me most in that video was one of the Seals that had just been killed in action. He was laying upside down on the side of a mountain. And all around him, he had He had a sworn of Taliban fighters. His camey top was pulled over his chest. You could see exposed skin. I remember watching these fighters, and they were pillaging all of his gear off of his body, taking his watch off his wrist. Another one picked his rifle up, trying to figure out how to turn his laser on. Another one holding his ID up to the camera, showing the world who they had just killed. The thing I remember most about I thought about this segment was I saw what appeared to be a fresh tattoo on this KIA'd Seals' ribs. I looked over at my teammate who was sitting to my right, and he was crying. Before I could say anything to him, he looked at me and he just said, I remember the day he got that tattoo.

Now, the seal laying lifeless upside down, surrounded by Taliban fighters, was Danny Deetz. The same Danny Deetz That we were all there to honor in Texas over this weekend. That is just one scenario of many that plays out in my head this time of year. Some of you get it, some of you don't. A lot of you know exactly what it's like to lose somebody in the blink of an eye for the benefit of everybody else that lives in this country. As civilians, Some of you want to know, how can you honor these guys, these men and women, these service members that have died for everything that we've come to enjoy, our sense of security, our freedoms in this country. I know that can be tough. That's get real grumpy around this time of year. We've lost a lot brothers. And to us, that's family. You thank us for our service. We get upset because it's not about us. But I'm here to tell you one thing. It doesn't matter what we think. Here's what matters. When you go You're home tonight and you look at yourself in the mirror, you're getting ready for bed, you look at yourself in the mirror, and you ask yourself one question.

Was I an American who was worth dying for today? If the answer is yes, if you're doing everything Those service members that died for us would have ever wanted. Carry out our traditions. Carry out our culture. Stand up for what you believe in. Stand up for what's right. That's all you need to do. Just ask yourself, was I an American? It was worth dying for today. And for us, service members and veterans, today's tough. I know what you see. We all see the same things. We see the furniture store with 50 American flags out front with not one mention of one of those 1.1 million people who died for them to even have that furniture sale. We see the parties. We see the car sales. We see the carpet sales. We see everybody trying to make money. But there's a lot of good people in this country, too, and we have to remember that. And they're just looking for a way to show appreciation. And we have to remember something. We carry a lot of resentment. We carry a lot of weight. No matter what we do, that's never going to go away. But if we remember this one thing, Our brothers, our sisters, our family, the people that we fought with that didn't come home, they wouldn't want us carrying that weight.

They wouldn't want us feeling that resentment. They just want us living our best lives. They want us to be happy. That's why they did it. I don't know about you all, but the ones that I know, they wouldn't have gone out any other way. While that may be a tough pill to swallow, there's a quote that gives me some peace. Ironically, the first time I read this quote was the same day that I walked into Afghanistan for the first time, sat in on that That brief. Those of you seals that are watching that deployed over there, you know exactly what I'm talking about. It was written on the wall in the hooch that we used to sleep in. And this is what it says, For those who fought for it, freedom has a flavor. The protected will never know. And to me, that's a privilege to be able to say that. Happy Memorial Day, everyone. Remember what this day is about, and God bless America. Thank you.