While I worked in signals intelligence in Iraq, my friend Alyssa Peterson worked in human intelligence. In 2020, more than 6,100 veterans died by suicide. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial, better known as the Wall, is inscribed with over 58,000 names of Americans who died in or supporting combat, or within 120 days of injuries or illnesses incurred in the combat zone. Their names will not be inscribed on the Wall, though the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund is seeking to memorialize them in other ways. I will forever mourn and honor her, too, among our war dead this and every Memorial Day, whether or not her name is ever inscribed on a list of those killed in the global war on terrorism.

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