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AMNA NAWAZ: Kevin Powers 
signed up for the Army before 
finishing high school and went

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to basic training the 
day after he graduated.

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He was in Iraq for a year.

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And when he returned home, 
he managed to some of 
what that experience was 
like in his critically

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praised novel "The 
Yellow Birds."

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Powers says it's hard to record 
what you are truly thinking 
and feeling in combat because,

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in many ways, you 
aren't doing either.

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Much of the fighting happens 
on instinct and adrenaline.

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That's the situation so many 
Americans still face and, in 
Powers' Humble Opinion, what

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we need to remember tonight.

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KEVIN POWERS, Author, 
"A Shout in the Ruins": 
If you're watching this 
today, perhaps you're

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taking a break from a family 
barbecue, or maybe you have 
just returned from shopping

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for some much needed item 
that this weekend's sales 
have allowed you to purchase.

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I hope the extra time with your 
loved ones is rewarding, and 
the long weekend a satisfying

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break from the challenges of 
work, or school, or parenting.

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But I humbly ask you to 
consider the following.

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Fourteen years ago, I spent 
Memorial Day looking for IEDs 
in and around the city of Mosul,

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Iraq.

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I had only been in country 
for a couple of months.

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My unit had not yet 
suffered its first casualty.

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But, as summer began, the 
purple fingers of Iraqi citizens 
casting their votes felt like

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a cause worth facing 
that danger for.

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But, soon enough, 
something shifted.

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Attacks increased in 
both intensity and 
frequency over the summer.

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And by the time autumn came 
around, several members of my 
company had been wounded, some

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seriously, and some terrifyingly 
so, especially when you knew 
you had to go back outside the

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wire again the next day.

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I will admit, I was scared 
pretty much all of the time.

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But I did my job to the best 
of my ability, and I still 
believed that we might all make

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it home together.

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But that's not how war goes.

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Close to Christmas, as 2004 
was coming to a close, our 
unit lost two young men.

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Their names were Sergeants 
Nicholas Mason and David Ruhren.

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They were both 20 years old.

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I grieved for them and 
their families then, and I 
still grieve for them today.

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And I would ask you to consider 
the fact that since our current 
wars began in 2001, as of

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mid-May, there have been 
6,957 others to grieve for.

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Just a month ago, a young 
man from Colorado was 
killed in Afghanistan.

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It's hard to believe that, 
when I came home from Iraq 
in 2005, he was 9 years old.

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So, today, I would ask you 
to take a moment to ask, how 
many more names might be added

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to the long list of those we 
will be asked to remember next 
year, and to also remember

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the thousands of veterans, 
actively serving men and women, 
and grieving families, their

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fallen brothers and sisters, 
for whom Memorial Day doesn't 
just fall on the last Monday in

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May, but on every single day 
of the rest of their lives.