This Memorial Day, we remember the sacrifices of so many who died. And so many who do not need to.

After Biden’s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan (and the accompanying death toll), American servicemembers continue to be killed. There may be no official wars, but an Iranian-backed attack out of Iraq at an American base on the Jordanian border claimed the lives of 3 servicemembers and two Navy SEALs died trying to intercept Iranian weapons being smuggled to the Houthi terrorists attacking ships in Yemen.

Some would say that we should withdraw from everywhere. Let Iran control shipping through the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. And then let China take Taiwan and the China Sea, let North Korea take South Korea and all the rest.

But even today, Iranian assassins are roaming America looking for targets. Will they go away once we do?

Will China stop spying on us and plotting against us?

The tragedy is that successive administrations squandered so many lives in pursuit of goals that did not strengthen us or weaken our enemies. We chased the folly of nation-building while exhausting our deterrence. And decades later they seem to have learned nothing from the experience. It’s sickening how many lives were lost, not only the dead, but the wounded and the scarred, and how little we’ve gained for all of that.

The fallen deserve a country whose government values their lives, not just their sacrifices.

Recently I was writing again about General McChrystal and the Afghanistan ‘surge’ under Obama. McChrystal told the Senate that he would not prioritize killing Taliban but shielding Afghan civilians. The end result was a massive surge in American military casualties under crippling rules of engagement.

American soldiers (and no soldiers) should ever be sacrificed to protect an enemy population. Nor should they be sent into combat to nation-build. We should not ask men to fight and die for global causes, but for American ones.

There must be an end to wokeness in the military and to liberalism in our use of force. We must put our soldiers first and the enemy last.