Growing up in blue-collar-land of the greater Detroit area, Memorial Day was always a big splash in the community with parades, wreaths, veterans of all the major wars, including WWI, and of course the remembrance of those who gave their lives for our ability to have the parades and the lifestyle we so enjoy. But watching and participating in those events with my Army veteran father, it wasn’t until I wrote “The Penny” that I gained an understanding of his secret, being volunteered for radiation testing in Alaska. My mother related, after he passed of cancer in 1997, that he would not be able to come home from the Bush in Alaska “because he was too hot.” When questioned, my mother would simply shrug her shoulders and abdicate to what my father told her: that he was subjected to radiation in some form of nuclear testing. The Cold War took the unaccounted lives of many. There were special operations deaths, there were casualties that were outside of he public’s need-to-know, and even during the Vietnam war – a vary loud incursion into the quiet Cold War – there were missions to places we were never privy to. My father was in the Army for almost eight years, counting his reserve duty. He loved the military and loved being a part of “a secret.” He never talked of his past duties except for the odd story of someone getting killed by a bear or moose while running communication lines in the Bush. He loved to tell a horrible story of a “half-track falling right off a cliff on a thin road.” There have been servicemen and women around the globe for us, and over the decades, many die a quiet death so we may live to tell the tale. These are the folks I wish to remember the most. The unsung heroes, who when they die, we never hear. We never know. And for those who suffer for the indiscretions of bad policy and poor follow-up at VA’s. I remember my father as a man of honor who kept his secret as he was told. The radiation killed him in the end, even after surviving lung cancer; but in retrospect, I will never forget two physicians – a cardiologist at U of M and a oncologist at Munson – make passing comments six years apart: “It looks like he took a lot of radiation.” We always attributed the over-radiation to the lung cancer treatment, but then we remembered he stopped treatments early because he was tired of the process. His last chemo, he left the hospital AMA (against medical advice). My father was killed by the Cold War. I celebrate Memorial Day for those we forget. Now we remember a new war, a viral war. There are those giving their lives on the front we won’t hear about. Memorial Day takes on a new group. Least we forget.