Given the kind of war we have today, where any one of us could be on the front lines at any time, one of the most apropos observations for Memorial Day was the last line of the 2015 film Eye in the Sky.
In this terribly true to life fiction, a drone strike took out terrorists plotting to blow up a shopping mall in Kenya, but caused significant collateral damage. Afterward, the British Under-secretary of State criticized the general who made the decision to make the strike, calling his decision “disgraceful.” The general replied, calmly relating what he observed at the aftermath of five terrorist mass murders. He finished with a rebuke, also calmly delivered: “Never tell a soldier that he does not know the cost of war.”