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America Still Has Heroes
Members of the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment, also known as “The Old Guard,” place flags at the headstones of U.S. military personnel buried at Arlington National Cemetery ahead of Memorial Day, on May 23, 2024, in Arlington, Virginia. (Kent Nishimura via Getty Images)
At a time when fewer people say they love their country, 24-year-old Kennedy Sanders and 20-year-old Jared Schmitz died for it.
By Joe Nocera
05.27.24 — U.S. Politics
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It was early afternoon, the Thursday before Memorial Day, and Oneida Oliver-Sanders and her husband Shawn Sanders were driving from Atlanta to their home in Waycross, Georgia, four hours away. They had been honored guests at the state’s annual Memorial Day remembrance, held every year by the steps of Georgia’s ornate capitol building.

“It was really nice…

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Joe Nocera
Joe Nocera is a senior editor and writer at The Free Press. During his long career in journalism, he has been a columnist at The New York Times, Bloomberg, Esquire, and GQ, the editorial director of Fortune, and a writer at Newsweek, Texas Monthly and The Washington Monthly. He was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2007.
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