Memorial Day means something different when you’ve worn the uniform.

For most Americans, it’s the start of summer. Backyard barbecues, a long weekend, maybe a parade. I don’t begrudge them that. A country at peace is worth celebrating. But for those of us who served, and especially for those of us who lost brothers and sisters along the way, Memorial Day is something quieter and heavier. It’s a day you spend with names.

grave sites at the national military cemetery in Mesa, Arizona

I graduated from VMI in 1967. By the time my class had been out a few years, some of those names would be on a wall in Washington, DC. Ranger-qualified, Airborne-qualified,  we thought we were invincible. We were not. None of us were.

What I’ve learned in the decades since is that the casualty count doesn’t stop when the shooting does.

We lose approximately 22 veterans a day to suicide. That number has become a kind of shorthand in the advocacy world, but I want you to sit with it for a moment. Twenty-two. Every day. Men and women who survived deployments, firefights, and IEDs, and then came home and couldn’t survive the silence. That is not a statistic. That is a national emergency we have somehow normalized.

That’s why I founded Rally4Vets and DVEN (the Disabled Veteran Empowerment Network).  Connection saves. It really is that simple, and that hard.

This summer, we’re taking that mission coast to coast. The 2026 America Grand Tour departs Los Angeles on June 12th for a 37-day road rally across this country, ending on the National Mall in Washington, DC. We’ll be rolling through communities large and small, meeting veterans where they live, making noise, and making the point that no veteran should be invisible in the country they defended.

On Memorial Day, I’ll be thinking about the men I served with who didn’t come home. I’ll also be thinking about the ones who did come home — and later lost the battle anyway. Both groups deserve to be remembered. Both groups deserve more from us than a moment of silence once a year.

If you want to honor the fallen, honor the living by showing up for them. Go to an event. Volunteer. Sponsor a program. Or simply reach out to a veteran in your life and ask how they’re really doing.

That’s not a small thing. That’s the whole thing.

Robert Hess Vietnam Veteran, U.S. Army (Ret.) VMI Class of 1967 Founder, Rally4Vets & DVEN