We Remember: Why We Told America’s Story Through Every Uniform

Veterans Day has always carried a special weight, but this year we wanted to do more than say thank you. We wanted to show it—visually, honestly, and across the full sweep of American history.

The video we created, We Remember — A Veteran’s Day Tribute, moves from the Revolutionary War to the modern day. It isn’t a timeline for its own sake. It’s a reminder that service in this country has never belonged to one generation, one branch, or one battlefield. It is a long, unbroken line of Americans advancing freedom step by steady step.

And so we chose to show them exactly that way: always walking forward.

A Walk Through History

The film opens on a lone Revolutionary War soldier emerging through the morning fog. His uniform is older, the musket heavier, but the posture is unmistakable—shoulders squared, eyes fixed ahead. As the scene transitions through the War of 1812, the Mexican–American War, and the Civil War, a pattern emerges. Different eras. Different gear. Same resolve.

That was deliberate. As narrator Jackie Ridge says in the video, “Every era brought new uniforms. New battlefields. New burdens. But the courage? That never changed.”

Veterans Day is not simply about the conflicts we remember by name. It is about the men and women who stepped into them—ordinary people called to extraordinary service.

The Women Who Served Where They Were Needed Most

But service did not take one form. When we explored America’s military past, we knew it was essential to honor the women whose contributions rarely receive the spotlight they deserve.

In early wars, they served as nurses, caregivers, and support staff. They carried the wounded. They held hands in final moments. They brought courage into the quiet spaces where suffering was greatest. June P. Maddox gives voice to that truth in the film:

“We carried the wounded. We held hands in the final moments. We worked by candle, by flashlight, by faith—because every life mattered.”

From Civil War field tents to World War II hospitals to the evacuation wards of Vietnam, women bore emotional and physical burdens that shaped generations. Their service was not an accessory to history—it was essential to it.

Side by Side at Last

As the story moves into the post-9/11 era, the imagery changes again. Women are no longer confined to support roles. They walk in full combat gear alongside men—accurate, modern, and overdue. For the first time in American history, the nation’s defenders appear not as parallel lines but as a single formation.

In the final sequence of the film, a man and woman from each era walk toward the camera together. The message is not complicated: this is who we’ve always been becoming.

Across Land, Sea, and Air

We also wanted to show the full reach of service—infantry on the ground, pilots preparing for flight, sailors cutting across the water. A U.S. Coast Guard crew on a 45-foot response boat reminds us that not all battles look like the ones in textbooks. Vigilance happens everywhere freedom must be guarded.

Mason “Rex” Reyes, speaking with the blunt clarity only a combat veteran can offer, closes the loop:

“I served beside men and women who carried the weight of the mission without hesitation. Some fought. Some healed. All sacrificed.”

Why We Told the Story This Way

Because Veterans Day is not a single story. It’s thousands of stories—some remembered, many forgotten, all connected by the same thread of courage.

Walking through the eras allowed us to honor:

• the continuity of service

• the evolution of sacrifice

• the shared burden carried by men and women

• and the permanence of the ideals they defended

It also allowed us to say something simple but profound: freedom did not survive by accident. It survived because generations of Americans chose to safeguard it.

Because Freedom Still Rings

The film closes on those four words—our pledge and our debt:

Freedom Still Rings.

It rings because they carried rifles into the smoke.
It rings because they carried the wounded out of it.
It rings because they marched across continents, patrolled oceans, guarded coastlines, and stood watch in far-off places most Americans will never see.

It rings because they served.
And because they served, we remember.