Enjoying a day away from the office with a few hotdogs, cold drinks and a lot of sun makes for a great Memorial Day, but that isn’t exactly what the day is all about. In 2003, I left my family, friends, and future wife for an active duty deployment in the United States Army. In 2005, I left my wife of 1 month for a deployment to Baghdad, Iraq that would last over a year. Our Forward Operating Base (FOB) would often go on “Comms Blackout,” usually meaning a soldier on our FOB had been killed or seriously injured and their family was being officially notified.