Two weeks ago, I attended the Naval Helicopter Association symposium, surrounded by aviators swapping stories, reconnecting with old friends, and remembering those no longer there to join them. As Memorial Day comes and goes, gatherings like these always carry a deep sentiment. Beneath the laughter and sea stories is the understanding that military communities are built as much around absence as presence.
Living in Coronado, we are accustomed to seeing military service woven into daily life. Uniforms in line at the grocery store. Retirement ceremonies on the bay. New families moving in as others move on. But Memorial Day has come to mean something different to me after losing my husband on deployment over a decade ago. Before loss enters your own home, remembrance can feel ceremonial and even abstract. Afterward, it becomes deeply personal.
This year, the symposium unexpectedly reminded me how interconnected these stories can become across generations.
Ten years ago, I wrote an article about Navy pilot Commander Henry Stanley for the Avenue of Heroes. CDR Stanley was killed in 1965 after crash-landing his jet in a field to avoid homes after an engine flameout. Recently, I was at the home of a close family friend who moved next door to me from the East Coast less than 2 years ago. During a conversation, we discovered an extraordinary connection: her father was awarded a Bronze Star during WWII by CDR Stanley’s father. An old photo depicting CAPT Stanley pinning the award led me to confirm it was him with the same family I met 10 years earlier when honoring their father.
In another town, perhaps it would feel like an amazing coincidence. In Coronado, it somehow feels natural.
Military communities carry institutional memories differently. Stories travel. Names reappear. Mentorship, sacrifice, and service ripple outward across generations. One generation trains another. One family honors another. Decades later, those connections surface again in conversations at community events or over coffee with neighbors.
What struck me most about discovering this connection was not its improbability, but the reminder that service leaves behind far more than medals or citations. It creates relationships and responsibilities, memories and mentorship, that endure long after uniforms are folded away.
Memorial Day appropriately focuses on those we have lost. But over time, I have come to understand that it is also about the living — the families, friends, children, spouses, and shipmates who continue carrying those stories forward. Grief does not end when ceremonies conclude; it becomes part of the architecture of a family.
And yet, even knowing the cost, people continue to step forward.
Right before the symposium, I spoke with a young woman whose soon-to-be fiancé had recently made the surprising decision to leave the financial industry and pursue Naval Aviation through Officer Candidate School. While I acknowledged the very real challenges and consequences that come with military life, I also explained that it was a life I would choose again, even knowing what I know now.
As I listened to her describe his decision, I found myself thinking about the generations that came before him: grandfathers who served in earlier wars, aviators remembered at symposiums, families still honoring loved ones no longer here. Memorial Day exists as a testament to sacrifice; it also exists because each generation continues choosing service despite understanding what may someday be asked of them.
That is something I understand differently now than I once did.
There is a tendency to think of Memorial Day as looking backward, but perhaps part of honoring the fallen is recognizing the enduring communities and values they helped shape. In places like Coronado, remembrance is not confined to one weekend each May. It lives in friendships, in family stories, and in photographs that allow the past to serve as a touchstone to the present.
Sometimes remembrance appears in a symposium ballroom filled with aviators honoring an old friend. Sometimes it emerges in the discovery that one grandfather once honored another, many years ago. And sometimes, it takes shape in a young couple preparing to begin a journey generations before them also chose, despite knowing the risks. In all these moments, the legacy of service endures.
VOL. 116, NO. 21 – May 27, 2026