As of September 30, 2005, there were 24.4 million (24.387,000) military veterans in the United States.  Of there, 9.4 million 99,348,000) veterans were age 65 or older. 

"Every evening at 10, beeps emanate from the top drawer of my dresser. The sound comes from a watch that has resided there for just over three years. The 20 beeps signify that another day is dawning in Iraq. The watch belonged to my son, Specialist Martin Kondor, who was killed in action with the Army on the morning of April 29, 2004, in the city of Baquba, north of Baghdad. Martin was 20 years old.

...Last month, on April 29, the third anniversary of Martin's death, we received an e-mail message from the man whose life our son had sworn to safeguard. He's now a brigadier general, stationed in Baghdad this time on his second tour in Iraq. In his message, the general said: "None of us who served with your son will ever forget the day that he passed away. We will never forget him or his service to our nation. It was an honor to serve with your son."

As I read those words, I realized that the greatest memorial of all for a fallen soldier lies not in the gravestones, bronze plaques or markers that display his name, but rather in the memories of his family and friends, and in the respect and admiration of his fellow soldiers and countrymen.

And so before heading out to the big sale or the opening of the town pool or the neighbors' backyard barbecue, take some time to attend a local Memorial Day ceremony. Do this not just to glance over the gravestones or the plaques or the markers that list the fallen soldiers' names, but out of respect for the friends, family members and comrades they leave behind - some of whom have died or are still alive or have yet to confront their fate."

What is the single most critical factor in the academic achievement of children: socioeconomic status, family structure, or the resources of home and school? Judging from a study involving more than 6,000 schools in 32 countries by Gary N. Marks at the University of Melbourne, being reared in an intact family helps children the most to achieve their best.

Marks looked at data on more than 172,000 fifteen-year-olds tracked in the 2000 version of the Program for International Student Assessment of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). He found that students who were living with both parents had consistently higher reading and math scores than their peers from other living arrangements. No statistically significant effects were found in any country showing these students having lower tests scores relative to their peers from broken families. Yet students living with single parents had significantly lower reading scores in 18 countries and significantly lower math scores in 21 countries. Their peers in stepfamilies had significantly lower reading scores in 26 countries and lower math scores in 21 countries.

The negative educational effects of living with single parents were strongest in the United States, which Marks noted as having the largest proportion of fifteen-year-olds in that category. On average, American students from single-parent families scored 50 points lower for reading, and 53 points lower for mathematics, than American students from intact families. "These are large effects, considering that 100 score points approximate one standard deviation."

Perhaps most important, Marks found that socioeconomic factors reduced but did not account for these correlations. "In most countries sizeable effects for living in a single-parent family remained when controlling for socioeconomic background." In 21 countries showing significant effects of living with single parents on math scores, controlling for socioeconomic background reduced the effect to insignificance only in Australia. In 30 countries showing effects of such living arrangements on reading scores, controlling for socioeconomic factors reduced the effect by up to only 5 points in 19 countries.

Yet his study found that socioeconomic factors do play a much larger role in reducing the educational impact of having many siblings-often associated with lower test scores. "In almost all countries, the effect of family size declined by between a quarter and a half when taking into account economic background." Marks also found no support for the popular theory that connects those lower academic outcomes to parents having less time and resources to spend with each child.

Given the global extent of these findings, why doesn't the U.S. educational establishment or the politicians-both of whom claim to be concerned about "the children"-warn parents of the educational risks to their children when they decide to live outside the bonds of marriage?