DON'T FREE-RIDE ON THE ALL-VOLUNTEER MILITARY. A military draft is not economically efficient, and a military that must recruit volunteers is obligated to be protective of its troops in ways that a conscript army is not. The tradeoff, however, is that many families have no concept of what it means to have a parent, a child, a sibling, or a relative in harm's way.

"There's a disconnect every day, but I think it's felt even more so on Memorial Day," said Paul Rieckhoff, executive director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. "The average American family goes to the beach or goes to a barbecue. The average military family goes to a cemetery."

The weather favored DeKalb's Monday morning commemoration, which included the parade, a few speeches, the Remembrance Table, volley and Taps. Sadly, the chain of portraits of Illinois war dead now stretches an entire block. The Star Spangled Banner still waves, and that sometimes requires people to go into dangerous places.