BOISE -- Memorial Day is a day to honor the fallen, to remember those who paid the ultimate price and put their lives on the line to save ours.
American flags line the sidewalk in front of the Idaho Fallen Soldiers Memorial outside the University of Idaho College of Law this Memorial Day. The monument honors every soldier who died in a foreign land to protect our freedom and liberty and contains two walls with names of Idahoans killed in the global war on terrorism.
Twenty-year-old Army SPC Brandon Titus is one of those dozens of names of Idahoans who lost their lives after September 11, 2001 while serving our country.
"'August 17, 2004 in Baghdad, Iraq when an Improvised Explosive Device detonated near the checkpoint,'" Brandon's father, Tom Titus, read from a poster about Brandon attached to an American flag. "'He was outgoing. Yeah, he was a joker. In his absence, there is now silence.' I mean, yeah, a lot of the guys told me that."
Tom says Brandon dismounted from a Humvee, on which he was the lead gunner.
"It'll be 14 years this August," Tom said.
"Does it feel that long?" KTVB asked.
"No... no. It still feels like yesterday. Days like this it's just like yesterday, or it'd be like this morning. That's why I didn't go out to the vet cemetery today."
A 2002 Borah High School graduate, varsity football player, football coach and aspiring teacher, who felt it was his calling to follow in his veteran father and other family members' footsteps.
"His last letter home - the one thing he believed in being around me - was, as he said before, 'I can't take advantage of the freedoms given to me by my father, grandfather, the rest of my family. I have to earn them'," Tom said.
Tom says he was emotional when Brandon told him he enlisted.
"I wasn't angry at him. I was angry at the concept of him even thinking about it," Titus told KTVB. "I said you have all these opportunities. It was like he didn't need to go."
When asked if he was proud of his son, Titus choked up and said it took a few days.
"He was my only son," Tom said as he held back tears, "and, uh, we'd been through a lot."
"I got to thinking, OK he's gonna do good. He did. He was the lead gunner, senior gunner in his company, Bravo Company."
To many families like the Tituses who have lost someone in battle, Memorial Day weekend isn't a time for celebration.
"It's sad because everyone is so focused on barbecues and the three-day weekend, I'm off work, let's have a get-together. And that's it," Tom said. "To me, it's just another weekend where we really remember."
Titus says it doesn't matter if you are connected to anyone who served in a conflict war; Memorial Day is a time to honor the fallen and remember their ultimate sacrifice.
That sacrifice is stark at places like Veterans Memorial Park in Boise, and particularly at the Idaho Fallen Soldier Memorialover Memorial Day weekend where American flags waved in the wind - one for each of the Idaho soldiers killed in the war on terrorism.
"When people look at this, see the flags, and they see the bios here of the military personnel is actually read it, learn about the person. Just from that short little statement they have there you can pick up a lot. This is who this person was," Tom said.
These words from a father who lost his son 14 years ago, a man who served in Vietnam, serve as a reminder to take a moment - not just on Memorial Day - and not just at the Idaho Fallen Soldier Memorial - to reflect and pay respects.
"Take time to go to the veterans cemetery. We're lucky we have one of the best ones in the United States. Take time to go to any cemetery," Tom said. "Remember them. Honor them."