Nick Freitas

We put on the uniform to accomplish the mission to make sure that we can continue to live in a country where men and women can breathe free.

And there's a price to be paid for that.

And the reason why we honor men and women in uniform is because they've agreed to pay it.

And on Memorial Day, we remember the people who did.

Well, I think one thing that's important to remember is Memorial Day is not Veterans Day.

So Memorial Day really is honoring those who gave the last full measure of devotion, who died in service to their country.

And I think one of the best ways that you can do it is you can simply pick a story of somebody that died in service to their country, and you can remember them, you can speak their name, you can talk about who they were.

And it could be a family member, it could be a friend, it could be someone that you don't know personally.

But I think it's important to do that because

You know, one of the things that I've told veterans a lot is that if you don't tell your story, somebody else is going to.

And a lot of times it's a college professor or it's a journalist or it's someone that has no idea what you actually went through.

And so when veterans are actually willing to share their stories and then that's carried on by their family members, by their friends after they're gone, I think it's a really important way to remind people that we're actually a part of a legacy that people really had to fight for that they died for.

And I think that's something that we can be proud of in remembering their service, but it also reminds us that we have an obligation.

Well, I like to – I actually like to go and I like to – usually we'll dedicate my podcast that day to talking about a story of someone who's now gone.

In particular, I had someone that I served with named Daehan Park, and we were in First Special Forces Group together, and he was killed as part of operations in Afghanistan.

And I wasn't there for that.

And it was one of those –

It was one of those strange sensations where you felt a sense of guilt, even though you knew you hadn't done anything wrong.

It was just the fact that someone that you knew, someone that you cared about, someone that you served with was was now no longer gone.

And and I remember not only him, but I remember that he had a wife, that he had two little girls and that I have an obligation to make sure that his kids grow up.