Americans view our most recent national holiday, our Memorial Day, in countless ways related to their age, their birthplace, life experiences or the lives of those like their parents.

For many of us, it is the most solemn of our holidays, though we celebrate it by doing enjoyable things with our friends or families, from camping to sports events, from hiking to picnics, and from trips to the mountains to fishing in a quiet stream. It was the sme for for me, having just enjoyed a week in New York City with all its cultural and entertainment bounty.

Across our nation, smaller ceremonies were taking place at hallowed grounds, the cemeteries and graveyards where our servicemen and servicewomen lie at rest.

It is not lost, still, on millions of us who enjoy our lives and the endless possibilities, the enormity of what we owe these fallen Americans. My frame of reference remains World War Two and what this conflict did to shape my life and so many I know among my family and the friends of my youth, and to a lesser degree, the conflict in Vietnam of my 20s.

My father was whisked away to England and North Africa in the days following the December 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor, along with the millions of other young men suddenly torn from their hometowns and families and thrown into the horror of a global war that changed the America we knew forever. He was in the US Army Air Corps at the time, later to become the Eighth Air Force, but unlike 405,000 others who gave their lives, he came home to resume his life in 1945.

For ten straight Sundays recently, I sat spellbound in my living room and watched the superb World War Two HBO Series, "The Pacific", produced by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg and based on the memories and books written by two Marine Corps vets who fought at Okinawa, Iowa Jima, Peleliu, Guadalcanal and other brutal, indescribable battles. This was the companion series to the acclaimed 2001 mini-series, "Band of Brothers", also from Hanks and Spielberg, but based on the experiences of the Army's 101st Airborne Division in Europe.

These two television series, in a perfect world, should be mandatory viewing for much of our youth, as well as some middle-aged Americans who take a lot for granted about their view of the American Dream, because once you have seen them, you will never take lightly your average day.

I was thinking this morning of one of those young men who served in the Pacific and who was also an Olympic athlete, Lou Zamperini. He's 93-years-old now, one of our oldest living Olympians, but his story is special.

I met him several times at fund-raising events and Olympic dinners over my years with the United States Olympic Committee, and every time I introduced him, I was riveted by seeing him and listening to him, for he is the quintessential hero. Fresh out of Torrance High in California and headed to USC, he made the 1936 Olympic Team and entered the 5,000 metres in Berlin, with all the ominous rumblings and dark shadows of what was to come for him and our world. He finished eighth in the race, but was invited to shake hands with Adolf Hitler at the conclusion of the event - something he remembered when he returned to the Olympic Stadium in Berlin in 2005.



Zamperini was a gold medal favorite for the 1940 Games in Tokyo after setting an American record in the mile run at USC in 1938, but found himself instead a bombardier in the Army Air Corps. In May, 1943, during a search and rescue mission 800 miles south of Pearl Harbor, his B-24 was shot down by Japanese fighters. He drifted for 2,000 miles on a life raft, surviving on chocolate bars, water, small fish, birds and ultimately, rainwater.

He and his two companion flyers kept their wits about them by doing quizzes, imaginary meals, singing Bing Crosby tunes (I can only imagine how many renditions of "White Christmas"). On the 33rd day of this ordeal, the tail gunner died, and on the 47th day, he and his buddy made it to land in the Marshall Islands and were taken prisoner by the Japanese.. He spent the next two-and-a-half years as a prisoner of war, moving from one camp to the next, and finally to the Japanese mainland.

Liberation came in September, 1945, for Zamperini. He authored a book on his experiences, "Devil at my Heels, A World War II Hero's Epic Saga of Torment, Survival and Forgiveness",  and about to be published in November is a novel by Laura Hillenbrand, who wrote "Seabiscuit", about his story.

Zamperini was a runner in the Olympic Torch Relay ahead of the 1984 Games in Los Angeles and the Relay leading to the 1998 Olympic Winter Games in Nagano, Japan.

He still lives in Hollywood and does motivational speaking and a film on his life is in development, with actor Nicolas Cage tabbed to portray his character. Other American sports heroes interrupted their careers to serve in the armed forces without regard for their safety or their cushy lives, notably Ted Williams, Bob Feller, and Jerry Coleman. Another 1936 Olympic decathlon champion Glenn Morris of Simla, Colorado and CSU, fought in the Pacific.

But some, like my hometown Omaha Benson High sports hero, Nile Kinnick, never made it home. When my father came home in 1945 to resume his life and work for his father's printing business, our neighbour across the street, a judge, welcomed home his son, Charlie Gietzen, who had flown Marine F4U Corsairs in the Solomon Islands battles, and he played catch with me on occasion as I grew up. As did my first boss at an Omaha TV station, another former Marine Corps pilot.

I spent some modest time with these memories this week as I do on this holiday each year, because they remind me of the gifts and limitless horizons the men and women who died in our service, and those who were fortunate to return, helped to make possible for me and most of my friends.

And it is why, from Lake Placid to Salt Lake, the playing of our National Anthem for an American Olympic champion, was so very inspiring and memorable for me. These athletes have stood atop the victory stand at the Games partly because of the sacrifice of the fallen in World War Two and Vietnam.  

Mike Moran was the chief communications officer of the USOC for nearly 25 years before retiring in 2003. In 2002 he was awarded with the USOC's highest award, the General Douglas MacArthur Award. He worked on New York's unsuccessful bid to host the 2012 Olympics and is now director of communications for the Colorado Springs Sports Corporation.