Today, we will pause to honor with pride our community’s 65 soldiers dead and the thousands of other brave men and women who have served in the military from World War I to Iraq. They have given back to their country and, in many cases, laid their lives on the line so the rest of us can live in freedom and peace.

At one time, Nov. 11 was known as Armistice Day in observance of the end of World War I — at the 11th hour, on the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918. Those who distinguished this day, including members of Congress in 1938, who made it a national holiday, had an idealistic dream that World War I was “the war to end all wars.”

Regrettably, human frailty and the domination of men by other men assured us that World War I wasn’t the last conflict. Every American generation since 1918, from World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War to the war against terrorism, has realized that peace is an interlude to war.

Today, we are at war. It was no more apparent than the photos and text on the front page of this newspaper on Tuesday.

In one photo, the name Brandon Christopher Dewey is etched into a black marble column of the Tracy War Memorial. Marine Lance Cpl. Dewey was the fifth Tracy son to die in Operation Iraqi Freedom in the past three years. He died on duty at a checkpoint in the dangerous al-Anbar province where a suicide bomber blew up his car. It was a tragedy felt in the neighborhoods of Tracy — halfway around the world.

Another photograph on Tuesday’s front page captured another tragic side of the Iraqi war, which also was felt halfway around the world, but for a far different reason.

Tyler Jackson, another Marine from Tracy, pleaded guilty to two counts for his role in killing an Iraqi civilian. Lance Cpl. Jackson dishonored not only the uniform he wore but also his countrymen.

However, the misdeeds of one should not obscure the past, present and future deeds of the 150,000 other troops serving in Iraq and those of the more than 25 million living U.S. veterans. Today, we pause for them and especially for those who have died fighting for us.