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Sgt. Jeff Putnam got his four-day pass and headed home to Radford this weekend after several weeks of training at Fort Bragg, N.C.

At 28 years old, he is weeks away from an all-expense-paid trip to Afghanistan with Company C's 3rd Battalion, 116th Infantry Regiment, 29th Division.

The National Guardsman has been to the Middle East once before. Of course, he was in the U.S. Navy then and rarely saw land, much less get off the ship. This time, he expects, will be different.

Putnam has plenty to think about before he goes, but at the forefront Monday was the soldiers whose shoes he now fills.

He was among about 125 people who attended Radford's annual Memorial Day program at Bisset Park. It was Putnam's last day before heading back to Fort Bragg.

He stood beside his father as Radford's mayor, Tom Starnes, spoke about the importance of remembering veterans. Desert Storm veteran Dana Jackson read off the names of 56 local soldiers who died in the World Wars and Vietnam. Putnam watched as the color guard raised the flag and listened as Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 776 fired its 21-gun salute. Then he watched as veterans unveiled and dedicated a new monument to soldiers who died in the Persian Gulf, Kosovo, Bosnia and Somalia conflicts.

Putnam said he did all that "to support the comrades that have fallen before me."

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan call attention to the significance of soldiers past and present.

"I think it's special this year with the war going on," said Judge James Turk, a Radford resident and veteran of World War II.

"I think it makes people more aware," said his wife, Barbara Turk.

"It does make people aware," their friend Tharsella Sevareid agreed. She was a U.S. Army nurse in 1945.

They have friends with relatives who now serve in the war on terrorism, but Memorial Day has always been an important day to them.

Small towns and military towns are usually the most patriotic in the country, Dana Jackson's wife, Eileen, said. During the couple's 16 years in Norfolk, holidays such as Memorial Day were always acknowledged in the military city for what they were - days to remember. In busy cities and suburbs, the meaning of the day gets lost in the hustle and bustle of Disney World and beach trips. But in small communities such as Radford, she said, people slow down to remember important days.

"People are more patriotic," she said.

Sometimes it takes a reminder, like Monday's guest speaker.

"We in this country owe a great debt of gratitude," Lt. Col. Anthony Skinner, commander of the Radford Army Ammunition Plant, told the group gathered at Radford's ceremony in the park. "We can start to repay that debt by not forgetting."