Memorial Day, he said, is for the troops who’ve done that.

“As Catholics, we honor the memory of our deceased every single day,” he said. “To honor those who have given their life for our country is very sacred.”

A Willingness to Die

Father Erikson’s primary ministry in the Diocese of Saint Petersburg is at St. Cecelia Parish in Clearwater. He retired from the Archdiocese of Boston in 2023, and from the Air Force in 2017, as a Brigadier General.

He served as an Air Force chaplain for 35 years, 28 of them in the Reserves and seven active duty.

In Iraq, “we were under attack constantly from rockets, and the convoys at the time were being hit by roadside bombs and small arms,” Father Erikson said. The sacraments became “so real and so needed.”

His first night as the medical group chaplain in Balad, he did what he’d do in a hospital: wait for medics to tell him a patient is ready to be anointed. But in the medical tent, where troops were triaged, he looked around and realized: nobody else was standing around.

“Every other person was grabbing towels, grabbing basins of water, holding IVs, taking the injured off of helicopters…” he said. “And by the end of the night, that’s exactly what I was doing.”

But his primary role remained.

“I’d go from stretcher to stretcher, introduce myself, and see what I could do,” he said.

He’d pray with anyone who wanted that, regardless of religious affiliation. He’d administer sacraments to injured soldiers who were Catholic. Some were alert, and others, barely alive.

“If people could survive a trip back to Germany, we’d get them on a medivac,” he said.

People with traumatic injuries, who couldn’t survive a flight, had surgery nearby.

He has stood beside soldiers who were “going to be meeting the Lord very soon,” who gave their lives protecting others.

“That’s what every single military member is willing to do,” he said. “For all of us, the next moment was not promised.”

Father Ryan Boyle, ordained for the Diocese of Saint Petersburg in 2015, has lived that, too.

“It’s in the back of every military member’s mind,” he said.

A Sobering Reality

Father Boyle, an Air Force chaplain currently stationed in Türkiye, is a third generation American and third generation military.

He attended the Air Force Academy and was commissioned in 1998 as a pilot.

“I flew for 10 years, and then I went to seminary,” he said.

He served in combat zones in Iraq and Afghanistan and has been on active duty as a chaplain for eight years.

“My job,” he said, like Father Erikson’s, “is to take care of people.”

He hears confessions, convalidates marriages, and facilitates religious education. He ministers to people who’ve been in combat, who have injuries and PTSD. As a chaplain and as a pilot, he has helped bring fallen soldiers home.

When repatriating soldiers’ bodies as a pilot, he’d pray for them by name—including one named Arthur.

Arthur had been “killed in combat that morning,” Father Boyle said. “I remember thinking this: He still had breakfast in his stomach, and eight hours ago, he was alive.”

But when Father Boyle encountered him, Arthur was in a flag-draped coffin on a flight from Afghanistan back to his family.

“It’s a tremendous honor to be able to take care of our fallen soldiers, to treat them with respect, to acknowledge the sacrifice they’ve made,” said Father Boyle.

There are ways Catholics can do that on Memorial Day, he said.

A Day—And an Important Reason—to Remember

Soldiers “sign up because they’re willing to fight and die if need be to protect our freedom,” Father Boyle said. “The first freedom in the First Amendment is religious freedom. It’s important for people to remember that.”

Father Erikson says it’s also important to remember the people who died for it.

Memorial Day is foremost “for them, to honor them, to commend them to the Lord,” he said. “And then secondly, it’s for us to acknowledge and solemnly celebrate the freedom that is ours because of their sacrifice.”

Father Boyle encourages Catholics to pray on Memorial Day for fallen soldiers, to remember them at Mass, visit a national cemetery, or reach out to fallen soldiers’ families.

“Thank them, (and) appreciate that freedom isn’t free,” he said. “It is ultimately paid for with the blood of American men and women.”