For many Americans, Memorial Day is seen as a time for a long weekend that signals the start of summer, cookouts, and sales at the local mall. However, for those of us who are veterans it is a time to reflect on those who lost friends and comrades in foreign wars. For me, it is Vietnam. For many of us, we say a quiet prayer for those they left behind.

It is impossible to go through this day without remembering the horrors of war. Seeing friends and comrades dying in front of you or finding them dead. They are bad memories, but they are also cold, stark reality.

We use the word “warrior” in an almost comic book fashion today. But, to a veteran, these fallen comrades were warriors in the truest sense of the word.

Recently, I read a book that reminded me of the words of the 18th century Prussian general and military theorist Carl von Clausewitz: “War is the continuation of politics by other means.” That “other means” is fighting and killing the enemy. Sending young men and women into war has no other purpose than to kill and destroy. They are not there, as recent U.S. Army commercials show, to be “woke.” The purpose of the military is to kill the enemy and risk being killed.

When soldiers are on the battlefield they are not fighting for whoever is in the White House or some other abstract cause, they are fighting for each other…to save their fellow warriors. When a young man or woman volunteers in the military they are doing it to help save their fellow volunteers. And past their fellow warriors, they are fighting for their family and community. More importantly, when a young man or woman volunteers for the military they know, all too clearly, what the possible outcome could be.

Sadly, as a veteran, I look at America today and what is going on and ask myself “was this what I was risking my life for?” A country where true leadership is uncertain and nearly every aspect of it is being deconstructed? A country where the Constitution, the very thing we took an oath to fight for, is being shredded at every turn by oligarchs and tyrants who want to “reimagine America”? A country where 50% of the population no longer believes in individual liberty, freedom of speech, tolerance, and individual spirit?

I my comrades who fell in Vietnam came back today what would they say? I wonder if they would have been so anxious to serve this country. As shocking as this is, this country has become what we were fighting against. This has become an abomination.

What we are seeing is no longer a free Republic, what we are seeing is a state that is becoming a vassal to China with oligarchs sympathetic to their Chinese masters.

Ultimately, you have to ask: “Who is really running our country?”

We now see a country where the FBI can frame a respected three-star U.S. Army general and lie about it. We have seen a director of the CIA brag about casting a presidential ballot for a bona died Communist. That same CIA director illegally spied on senators and then lied under oath about it on national television. We saw our national security apparatus, along with a compliant media, attempt a coup against a legitimately elected president in collaboration with foreign governments. And, to date, not a single individual has been held accountable.

Who the hell is running this country? Where are our principles, morals and guiding philosophy? We now live in a country where traditional American values are considered a threat to our country. Soon the old America will be gone and won’t be back.

On this Memorial Day we have to remember what our fallen warriors gave up their lives for and not bend our knees to tyrants. We need to believe in liberty and freedom more than ever. It is time we start waking up and accepting the truth. Only then, will we understand the true purpose of Memorial Day.