As a young boy in the 1960s Memorial Day held great significance.  Like many families mine had paid a dear price over the preceding century and memory of it lingered over even those of us too young to really understand.  World War One veterans were still spry and the World War Two veterans in the fullness of their years.  But to your future columnist they were all old men. Still, Memorial Day had meaning beyond the barbecues, time with families and the promise of a long school-less summer. 

As I grew older, the specter of Vietnam and a changing mood lessened the day.  Useful recollection was a casualty of that war, too.

By the time I reached manhood and embraced a military career the significance changed yet again.  The faces I remembered on the Memorial Day of my youth were of old men.  By the time I was a 26-year-old infantry captain the faces of those whom I memorialized were of my own generation. My view of Memorial Day became not a yellowed vision of old veterans gathering to remember, but of still youthful friends now gone. 

Now, an economics professor in early middle age, my memory and view again has changed.  When I consider the sacrifice of war, it is no longer the experience of loss on the battlefield, but in the forfeit of what comes after.  The cost of war is not death on the battlefield but rather of the surrender of the days that come after. 

On this last weekend in May we will memorialize men and women newly gone from us. For many of us a part of the memory will involve ritual, the playing of taps and a reading of names.  There will also be some lamentable politics.  All wars yield less good than anyone expects, no matter how purposeful the original cause.  When we remember the sacrifice of war we should put in context what they have given up for something they hoped would be greater than themselves. 

A young soldier killed in battle has given up about 20,000 days of life.  This is 20,000 sunrises, and sunsets and 60,000 meals with friends and families.  They did not live to earn the roughly $1.2 million dollars an average American would earn over a lifetime.  Most will have given up holding their newborn children, watching their first steps and seeing them off to school.  They would also have missed the tough times that add sweetness to the happy moments. 

The ripples of sorrow are long for families, and the loss of youthful vigor damaging to our economy in its broadest sense.  Indiana lost some 12,000 men in the Second World War.  The grandchildren they did not have would be enough to fill the entire student bodies of Ball State, Indiana University and Purdue. 

On this Memorial Day it is well to remember formally those who died.  But, it might also be useful to remember by savoring those things they traded for our futures.