This Memorial Day, Americans will be pausing to reflect on the loss of 193 men and women who fought and died in service of liberty. As of Wednesday, that was the confirmed coalition casualty count, made up primarily of American and British troops, of Operation Iraqi Freedom. This is not to count those who have died keeping the peace in Afghanistan over the past year or those who have fallen in related operations in the war on terrorism. A complete accounting of American casualties is kept on the world wide Web on an American military site, www.defendamerica.mil/fallen.html, which lists the rank, name, age, home-town, and date and place of death. The New York Sun has been running many of the photographs of the fallen in our obituary section, and they remind us that our armed forces are like our nation — diverse in race and region and religion, but united in patriotism and love for freedom.

Those who served, and who continue to serve, in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom, have done well by their country. And they have done well by the peoples of two nations that were oppressed by dictatorial regimes intent on making war against the West. Those regimes made their war while subjugating their own citizenry to brutality, deprivation, and fear all but unthinkable in the parts of the world where freedom and democracy reign.

The writers of these editorials have advanced for years the idea that the leading logical candidate for a Nobel Peace Prize is the American GI. Never has that been more clear than in the campaign that toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein. Going forward, those deployed around the globe will safeguard the peace that has been won at the price of their fellow soldiers’ lives. Just one thing to think about on Monday as “Taps” drifts across America.