American soldiers know the risks they face in battle. They shouldn’t have to face them on their home soil.

On the eve of Veterans’ Day, and in the wake of the massacre at Fort Hood, our minds now turn more purposefully and sorrowfully to those who serve and have served our country in the military. It’s most important that we remember them with gratitude.

It’s far too easy for us to forget our veterans altogether. Or at least to take them for granted. And it’s far too easy to forget the reasons our servicemen and women have entered into harm’s way in the first place — too easy to forget why we, as a country, fight the battles and wars we do. Even soldiers themselves can sometimes forget, and for understandable reasons.

I’m a fan of the HBO series, the Band of Brothers, which was produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks. (Frankly, I think it’s storytelling at its best.)

The series, which is based on the book of the same name by renowned historian Stephen Ambrose, recounts the heroics of Easy Company of the 101st Airborne. The series take us through their experiences together from boot camp in Toccoa, Ga., to D-Day in Normandy, to the massive, but failed, Operation Market Garden, to Bastogne and the heroic and harrowing Battle of the Bulge.

By April of 1945, as the war is coming to a close, we see that the soldiers have reached a point of fatigue and despair. Frankly, having lost a sense of purpose, they were just surviving. Given what they had faced, and the losses they had experienced, it’s no wonder that thoughts simply turned to survival rather than any larger cause.

In the ninth episode of Band of Brothers, appropriately titled “Why We Fight,” there is a scene in which hundreds of GIs are traveling in a caravan. As they do, they pass thousands of surrendered German troops.

Suddenly, an American soldier stands up and goes off on a tirade, calling the German soldiers names, wondering what they were thinking when they started this war. As another GI grabs him and sits him down, he mutters something about “being dragged half-way around the world, interrupting our lives … ” Then he shouts, “FOR WHAT?!”

For what? He and his fellow soldiers had lost sight of the cause and were just surviving.

In the next scene, they rediscover their purpose. A platoon of American soldiers on patrol comes across something that had been rumored but not yet discovered — a death camp.

As they unlock the gates to the camp and enter in, the American troops are greeted by empty stares and with boney and desperate hands literally grasping for help and hope. As the soldiers walk deeper into the camp they are stopped in their tracks by the horrifying sight of row after row after row of shabby tents, out of which skeletal, almost lifeless figures emerge.

“For what?” In that death camp — in the hollow looks and the emaciated bodies — the soldiers found the answer to their question. They weren’t just fighting for fighting’s sake — they were fighting evil. They were fighting for real people, and for ideas bigger than themselves.

Now, if in the midst of a war, soldiers are capable of losing their sense of purpose, how much easier is it for civilians like you and me to forget their cause and sacrifice? We have the luxury of tuning out the unpleasantness of war. It is much less painful for us to go about our day not thinking of the suffering, fear and death raging in some far corner of the world. As time drags on and lives and battles are won and lost, we just forget.

On this Veteran’s Day, take a moment to reflect on the great sacrifices our countrymen have made to preserve this country. If you have young children, ask them what they’ve learned about war veterans in school. Take them to a local parade or ask a family member who has fought to share their stories. Thank a veteran when you see him, or “adopt” a family who has a loved one off at war. If you live near a V.A. hospital, consider visiting its patients from time to time.

Whether in dramatic victories or painful losses, and whether they were on the offensive with clarity of purpose or the defensive with the mere hope of survival, American soldiers have served in noble endeavors to advance the cause of freedom and vanquish tyranny. And they did so with courage, which appropriately understood, does not signify that absence of fear, but rather the willingness to act in spite of fear.