And there are thousands and thousands more. Each life was important. That's what the holiday is all about. Thanks for sharing.

This year marks our 50th reunion.

More than 100 of my classmates have died. Many different causes.

I feel fortunate to still be alive. I grieve for those service people who never came home.

and for their loved ones. I spent many years trying to help heal the wounded minds.

I remember how proud I was to graduate in the Bicentennial Year, with all the patriotic displays and fervor that we had back then, at least in my part of the country. We've lost so much since then, and the pace is accelerating.

I know several of my HS classmates have died since then but I'm sure there are others that I don't know about.

Not sure if we are having a reunion, so graduation may have been the last time I saw some of those folks.

It was college or Nam.

Friends I knew in high school. I remember the first death of someone I knew…..I was a sophomore. Also, many of us lost relatives in WW2 and Korea. I had an uncle die on the Bataan death march. The horrors of war should never be trivialized and the sacrifices of people defending us should always be memorialized.

Peace ☮️

He was the very first causalty in Desert Storm the first Gulf War.

Several died in Nam, but the one I especially remember told me once that I was the first girl he ever kissed.

His friend, Jesus, did not make it back from Vietnam alive. His eyes welled up after all these years as I listened.

My close neighbor told another neighbor friend that he should go to Vietnam. She carried the memory of his death until her own.

As I work as a civilian on a military base, the memory of Vietnam is not with the young people there. My condolence to all those with memory.

6 died in Vietnam. Just under 6%. Shocking!

75 in my graduating class. I didn't stay in touch with any of those people, but I wouldn't be surprised if some of the guys got drafted. Now I'm wondering if they did and if they all made it back.

One of my cousins got drafted but never left the states. He ended up in the quartermaster corps after basic training and spent the rest of his hitch in Ft. Dix, NJ.

I'm sorry to hear about your friend Paul. There were too many like him.

two of our classmates in Vietnam and another committed suicide 3 months after coming home. We had all been in school together since first grade and it hit us so hard. I lost two of my former students: one in Afghanistan and one in Iraq. I cry every time I look through my school yearbooks and see their sweet little 7 year old faces smiling back at me. My mom’s brother was killed in World War II so I sadly never knew him. I choke up every Memorial Day and Veterans Day when I put out my flag.

When I went to my 5th highschool reunion more than 10 percent of the boys were dead. Half from drugs, half didn't come back from Vietnam. I had a graduating class of 400.

... and when I went for my draft physical, I got a 1Y instead of a 1A because I was too light for my height. Hard to believe, looking in the mirror now. When they went to the lottery system, I got a high number, so I never got called up.
'Nam was a war that should never have happened, which, to my mind, makes the loss of 58,220 young lives all the more tragic. And the 303,644 who came home wounded will likely attest to that.