"It's been hard. Every day you have to wake up - especially for my parents, it's tough to wake up every day and realize Mike is gone and he's not coming back," Licalzi.
/*Second Lieutenant Michael Licalzi*/ was commanding a troop of Marines in Iraq. Their tank crossed over a bridge, when that bridge crumbled beneath them. Licalzi and three others drowned in the water below.
In his hometown of /*Garden City*/ today, they unveiled special plaques memorializing Licalzi and other native sons killed in action overseas.
It was just one of dozens of events across /*Long Island*/ on this solemn day, from /*Long Beach*/ to /*Hicksville*/, to /*East Northport*/ in /*Suffolk County*/.
Stephen Labate remembered a good friend named /*Jimmy Naughton*/, an Army reservist and NYPD officer killed by an Iraqi sniper.
"You could have been walking to a dining facility or perhaps just driving down a road, one minute you're there, the next minute you're not. That was something that I didn't expect, but it was actually reality," Labate said.
For him and thousands like him, Memorial Day is not about shopping or barbecues. It's a solemn reminder, never to forget.
"It's nice to have a day to remember Mike and have everybody around us remember Mike and know what he did for us," Licalzi said.
