As I prepared to head to southeastern Afghanistan to lead SEAL Team TWO in 2012, I had an idea of what I could do to thank my team for their service: Find babysitters.
Partnering with the Navy SEAL Foundation, we offered 10 monthly “use or lose” babysitting hours to spouses navigating the stress of solo parenting and worrying about their loved ones in combat.
Today, on Memorial Day, when people say, “thank you for your service,” it’s a beautiful way to tip their cap to the 1.2 million people actively serving in the armed forces, or our 20 million veterans. But it’s also insufficient. Memorial Day shouldn’t just be a day to remember. It should be a day to change our understanding of service. It should be a day to realize that we are no different from the rest of you. We possess no special gift that makes us uniquely able to give back. We should not just be thanked for our service. We should be joined.
The pain of survivors on Memorial Day
I’ve buried far too many friends and teammates to enjoy Memorial Day as America’s big BBQ. It’s emotional. I served 20 years as a Navy SEAL, and most of the memories are beautiful: pride, camaraderie, and brotherly love that will last a lifetime. But there is also an indescribable weight. The sound of bagpipes, however well intended, reflexively transports me back to Little Creek Chapel or Arlington National Cemetery – dozens of painful services there, year after year, the price of service for those who survive it.
It gets worse. My friend’s daughter screaming that her dad promised he would come home. So many losses that hardly a week goes by without seeing the face of a fallen friend on social media – or a soldier, sailor, airman, or Marine I didn’t know, but whose family’s pain I can too easily imagine. The sacrifice is especially hard on spouses and children. They don’t know the risk their loved one faces at any given moment, so they imagine the worst.
Those of us in the service know intimately well that service isn’t just a noun. It’s a verb, too. The best way the 310 million Americans who have not served in the military can honor the fallen is to find your way to serve. Not everyone is called to serve in the way we do. The physical demands were exacting, and the emotional costs worse: seven deployments, 10 relocations, countless months away from family, and life-and-death risk too frequent. Everyone is endowed with unique gifts and their own combination of skills, abilities, and interests. We are each called to use those unique gifts to pull others up, in whatever way makes best sense.
People often ask me what lessons from the SEALs apply to the pandemic. It’s simple. We don’t think in absolutes. We think relatively. In a true team, not everyone is having the same hard day. Some people are having a relatively better day, while some are relatively worse. No matter how hard things get, the teammates who are relatively up help those who are relatively down. Said differently, when you’re having a bad day, just go find someone who is having a worse day and help. Pulling others up pulls us up.
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Service can be nurturing the elderly or mentoring the young. It can be improving our forests, cleaning our beaches or roadways, or helping prepare our precious planet for future generations. Does someone in your family need help? Is a neighbor silently crying out – maybe not in words, but you sense the need? Perhaps more importantly, in our disconnected world, should you reach out to a struggling citizen you’ve never met, but who needs you badly? You can shy away – or have a profound impact on their life.
Most important, service requires patience. It demands open-mindedness, to views that might not match your own. We don’t all agree, and we shouldn’t. But service doesn’t mean judgment. It means putting aside ego. It means shedding our biases. We need to critically consider alternate viewpoints, and weigh real data and information. We need to be humble.
Admit mistakes and let go
Helping others can be a window into self-discovery, that can challenge our preconceptions and teach us where we were wrong. Admitting those mistakes and unshackling ourselves from our biases can be surprisingly liberating. We need to celebrate differences and understand that they make us stronger. Service requires tolerance and respect when outcomes don’t match our own wishes.
One of my lieutenants surprised me by quietly asking permission for his platoon to spend an afternoon visiting kids at the local cancer ward – Sunday afternoon, their only day off. They'd been on the road training 18-hour days, six days a week for six weeks to prepare for the rugged mountains of Zabul Province in December. Great leadership; the team wanted to do it, and I knew it would bring them together.
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So he surprised me again with his deflated call afterward. An army unit was already there: same kids, same hospital. They didn’t really need us, the lieutenant told me. That threw me. How were two out-of-town units visiting the same children? Simple. Service begets service. But you don’t see that until you live it.
Yes, Memorial Day is absolutely about remembering and honoring the fallen. Our fallen heroes fell to make this nation greater. The best way to honor their service is to mirror it. Serve each other. You can begin this morning. What real action can you take to improve our country and the lives of our fellow countrymen? What will you do?
Mike Hayes (@thisismikehayes) served as Commanding Officer of SEAL Team TWO and oversaw all special operations in southeastern Afghanistan in 2012. He is a former National Security Council director of defense policy and strategy for Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, author of the 2021 leadership memoir "Never Enough," and founder of The 1162 Foundation to support the families of special operators who gave their lives in service.
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Honor us on Memorial Day by finding your own ways to serve: Retired Navy SEAL commander - USA TODAY
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