Globe Trot: On this Memorial Day ...

We remember the nearly 7,000 families who have lost loved ones in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice for our country. A good source for reading about them by the numbers remains iCasualties.org.

A look at the desperate and alarming rate of suicide among combat veterans: “Frankly if we are going to rely on the VA and the Department of Defense it’s a very difficult, and I would even have to say hopeless, situation,” said Chris Adsit from Military Ministry, a division of Cru (formerly known as Campus Crusade for Christ). “Not because the VA and DOD aren’t doing everything they can, but because they simply must cut out the most important element, and that is God.”

Today’s also a good day to read about America’s “walking wounded,” the nearly 1,600 amputees among over 17,000 catastrophically wounded in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many of them are twentysomething soldiers like Andrew Smith, learning to live life without his legs.

And finally, it’s fit to remember the ongoing challenges to active-duty servicemen and -women around the world, among them the challenge to be a Christian in the military. U.S. Coast Guard Rear Adm. William D. Lee recently warned a Washington audience of “a storm that I am almost certain will come” over religious liberty in the military, and said he will not to back down from “my right under the Constitution to tell a young man that there is hope.”