Memorial Day: The measure of devotion and the price of freedom

By Brig. Gen. Michael W. Cruz

On Memorial Day across America and especially here on our island of Guam, we pause not to celebrate but to remember. We gather in prayer, in reflection and in silence, honoring those who gave, in President Lincoln’s words, “the last full measure of devotion.”

That devotion is etched into the stone of our Guam National Guard Fallen Heroes Memorial.

Here, we remember the sons of this land who died in service during Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. These are not just names on marble. They are our family, our friends, and our soldiers. They deployed with pride, represented Guam with courage, and gave their lives in service to a country and the island they loved.

As a trauma surgeon who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, I’ve stood in the trauma bays where life and death collide. I’ve seen the faces of young warriors, some barely out of high school, grievously wounded in defense of ideals they scarcely had time to grow old enough to articulate fully. I’ve held hands in final moments, fought to stop the bleeding, and whispered silent prayers for the fallen. Their sacrifice is not just a story - I carry it in my bones.

But Guam's sacrifice did not begin with the Global War on Terror. It runs deep in our families and our soil.

During World War II, Guam endured one of the darkest chapters in our history under the brutal occupation of the Japanese Imperial Army. My grandmother was a victim of that horror. She was forced to watch helplessly as her oldest brother and eldest son were beheaded by Japanese soldiers on a beach in Agat. 

The atrocities are not distant footnotes from a history book. They are wounds that still live in our families, reminders of what it means to be undefended, unprepared, and forgotten.

That must never happen again.

Today, Guam stands at the crossroads of a new era. Our island is no longer just a remote territory. We are a strategic anchor in the Indo-Pacific, the westernmost U.S. soil in the theater. As regional tensions rise and global powers vie for dominance in the Pacific, Guam has become what military strategists call the “tip of the spear.”

But being at the tip also means being a target.

As we honor our fallen, we must not only mourn them—we must learn from them. Lincoln, at Gettysburg, called on the living to be “dedicated to the unfinished work” of those who died before them.

That work today is clear: ensuring Guam is never again caught off guard, never again defenseless, never again left to suffer alone.

This Memorial Day, we speak the names of our heroes—sons of Guam who gave all in service to freedom and peace:

• Sergeant Christopher Fernandez

• Sergeant Gregory Fejeran

• Sergeant Samson Mora

• Sergeant Brian Leon Guerrero

• Sergeant Eugene Aguon

• Specialist Dwayne Flores

Their courage lives in our hearts. Their legacy strengthens our resolve.

Memorial Day reminds us that freedom is not free. It is bought with blood and it is kept only through vigilance.

We’ve seen what happens when we are not ready. We know what it means to lose a brother or sister in uniform. And because we remember, as the Army motto goes: "This We’ll Defend."

Brig. Gen. Michael W. Cruz is the adjutant geberal of the Guam Army National Guard