I’ve lived through 46 Memorial Days, but this may be the first year that it seemed like a day we really needed. I had never quite been able to figure out why we had Veterans’ Day and Memorial Day. Maybe it is a little of us covering the same territory, but who cares? We don’t pay much attention on either day — maybe the consolidated gratitude will come closer to the mark.

Ben Stein gave a speech last night at Arlington Cemetery. To a crowd of friends and families of servicemen and women killed in the line of duty, he said:

A bad day for me is getting stuck in an airport security line. A bad day for you is being on the plane alone.

Yet your loneliness has meaning. Your loneliness, your pain, is the mortar and concrete that anchors the nation. The sacrifice your loved ones made, the sacrifice you made, that your kids made, is what makes the whole American world safe from terror.

Your loved ones’ lives had what we all want: meaning. The knowledge you were doing something big for others. That is EVERYTHING in life. …

John F. Kennedy said that here on earth, God’s work is our work. That doesn’t mean Wall Street’s work. It doesn’t mean the Washington Post’s work. It doesn’t mean Hollywood’s work. It means the work you guys do and the work of your husbands and wives and kids. Living and dying for your fellow man. That is God’s work in the deepest sense, and God bless you for what you do, and God keep you until you are with your loved ones again.

Whole speech is here.