Army veteran R.J. Lugo Jr. remembers them all. There was the non-commissioned officer on his final mission in Baghdad who volunteered to give a younger soldier a break from being in the gun turret – and was killed by a sniper. There was the soldier caught in an explosion that took his legs first – and eventually his life. In all there, were 32 soldiers in his brigade who died during their 15-month deployment to Baghdad from 2006 to 2007. And there were those who survived active duty but, in the darkness of post-traumatic stress, committed suicide when they got home.
Lugo, now a store manager at an Auburn, Calif., #starbucks, thought of them all yesterday, on Memorial Day. But he knows that for many who haven’t served in the military, the day is misunderstood, with some people thinking it’s a day to recognize living veterans (he was thanked for his service multiple times yesterday), or others seeing it as a reason for a three-day weekend.
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