The United States of America is preparing to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Since the Revolutionary War began on April 19, 1775, the U.S. has been involved in 12 major wars, in which more than 666,400 American soldiers have not only pledged but have given their lives in combat, fighting for the country that the Founding Fathers brought forth nearly 250 years ago. While many American cities and states have long carried on local customs honoring the soldiers who have courageously given their lives for America, Memorial Day is often traced to 1865, when Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Army of the Republic John A. Logan instituted Declaration Day, a holiday honoring the Union soldiers who died in combat in the Civil War. The practice rapidly spread across the country, both in the North and the South, and by the end of World War II had become widely known as “Memorial Day,” a holiday commemorating all American soldiers who had died in combat.

Throughout the history of Memorial Day, from the end of the Civil War even into the present day, the commemoration of fallen American soldiers has echoed with the bold sentiment of self-sacrifice upon which the U.S. was founded. The 56 patriots who signed the Declaration of Independence concluded that monumental document with the following line: “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.” When the American soldier and spy Nathan Hale was hanged by the British in 1776, his immortalized last words were, “I only regret, that I have but one life to lose for my country.” This noble sentiment, this dedication of oneself to one’s beloved nation and her people so completely, what Abraham Lincoln later called the “last full measure of devotion” in his famous Gettysburg Address, is a sacred inheritance passed from one generation to the next, ever since that shot was heard ‘round the world on April 19, 1775, in Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts.

Memorial Day is more than just the cap on a three-day weekend, more than just a summer day of grilling steaks and burgers and hot dogs, more than just a day of fun in the sun with family and friends. Memorial Day is set aside every year to honor those who gave their lives for this great nation. One way to honor America’s slain, unsung heroes, of course, is to appreciate the peace and security that they gave their lives to protect, but an even more meaningful way to honor their memory and their sacrifice is to follow in their footsteps and make our own sacrifices for the country that they loved enough to die for.

The brave men who fought in the Revolutionary War — farmers, planters, rope-makers, millers, gardeners, weavers, tailors, cobblers, shirtwrights, sailmakers, shipbuilders, carpenters, coopers, wheelwrights, tanners, saddlers, blacksmiths, farriers, butchers, bakers, candlemakers, and many others — did not leave their livelihoods behind to pursue illustrious careers in the military. They often left their farms and shops and mills and workshops and bakeries, which many times had been in their families for generations, in the hands of their wives and children while they marched off to what seemed certain death, waging war against the largest empire and greatest military power in the world at the time. Why? The reason was obvious to those courageous men, but would be recorded by the Founding Fathers some years later when the Constitution was written: for “ourselves and our posterity.”

Americans today certainly owe a debt of gratitude to the hundreds of thousands of soldiers who have given their lives fighting for this nation, but we also owe them a debt of duty. That duty is owed both to the generations who have come before us and sacrificed for the sake of our safety, sovereignty, and prosperity, but also to generations yet to come. The men who fought at Lexington and Concord, who crossed the Delaware River with General George Washington, who bested the British at Yorktown, did not brave years of war and violence, the deaths of friends and family, brutally cold winters with little food or warmth, grueling treks across the fledgling country laden with musket and pack simply for the sake of not being told what to do. They did so for the sake of their country, so that they could pass on to their children a country, which they expected their own children to cherish, safeguard, fight for, and pass on to their children, for generation after generation.

It is our turn now. Today, America is arguably the greatest military power in the world; our power is practically unquestioned and nearly unrivaled; we subsidize and support the military of almost every single Western ally around the world; the wars and conflicts in which we have been engaged over the past several decades have often been for the sake of security or global dominance, rather than existential fights for the soul of the nation. Those existential fights today rarely take place on battlefields, but now occur in our streets, in our legislatures, and in our hearts and minds. There is a moral war raging across the U.S. “What kind of nation are we?” is the question. Are we a nation that butchers our young in the womb, sacrificing unborn children on the altars of career, financial stability, social standing, or endless sex without responsibility? Are we a nation that mutilates our young, carving up the healthy sex organs of children and teenagers instead of affirming them in their God-given identities and modeling real manhood and womanhood for them? Are we a nation that revels in degeneracy, making millionaires of pornographers and a shocking host of OnlyFans prostitutes? In answering these questions, we owe it to this nation’s founders — and to the generations not yet even born who are heirs to that nation — to ask what kind of nation those more-than-666,400 American soldiers died for.

There is another battle in which the U.S. is presently engaged, in which all Americans can likewise play a role. While the question “What kind of nation are we?” is of critical importance, equally crucial is the question “Do we have a nation?” The Founding Fathers and the courageous men who fought and died to forge America, purchasing this nation’s future and the sacred inheritance of generations of Americans at the cost of their own blood, did so for “ourselves and our posterity.” They did not do so for millions of foreigners with no ties, no relationship to America or her people. The patriots who fought and died at Bunker Hill did not give their lives for Somali-born scammers. When Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee clashed at Gettysburg, not a single man serving under their command was fighting for Haitian “asylum-seekers.” When American soldiers clambered out of their landing craft and stormed Omaha Beach in France, they did not suffer a hail of German bullets for the sake of South American murderers and rapists. Each of the men who gave his life did so for America and the American people.

For decades, the sacrifice of those hundreds of thousands of slain soldiers has been disrespected and dishonored, relegated to little more than lip service on a single Monday once a year. The nation that they fought and died for has been transformed, flooded with foreigners who have no tie to America, save a desire to make money, which is frequently and promptly shipped back to their own country. All the while, the American people have suffered: our wages have been depleted, our housing has been devoured, our generosity abused, our culture diluted, and our fellow citizens murdered, raped, and fed a lethal combination of imported drugs, from cocaine to fentanyl.

“Do we have a nation?” For more than 250 years, more than 666,400 American soldiers have staked their lives on the answer to that question being “Yes.” It is up to us not to let them down, to ensure that their hallowed sacrifice was not in vain, and to pass on to their children and ours a better, safer, more sovereign nation.