We are inevitably told on Memorial Day that the dead perished fighting for our freedom. That isn’t really true. No hostile power other than the USSR had the will and the ability to deprive us of our freedom, and we never had to fight a war against them. Even the Nazis probably had neither the strength or the desire to invade and conquer us.
So the fallen died fighting for American interests, not our way of life. At times, you could argue that the wars they fought weren’t even in our interests. Does that diminish the value of their sacrifice? To me, the opposite is true. It’s relatively easy to fight when your back is against the wall; the sacrifice is greater and more impressive when it is made voluntarily with less at stake.