KIRKUK, Iraq — Sit down with platoon buddies of a fallen soldier and the memories start to trickle out.

Such was the case a few days ago with 2nd Platoon, Company A, 3rd Battalion, 116th Cavalry (Armor) of the Oregon National Guard. Eight days ago they lost “Oggy,” as in Sgt. John Ogburn III, in a vehicle accident.

“He was more of a father figure to us,” said Sgt. Jim Carroll, himself an elder statesmen of the platoon. “He’d worried more about us than himself.”

When Oggy took carryout food from the dining hall, plus a little extra for whoever might want some, it wasn’t unusual for him to give most of it away. When someone borrowed Oggy’s broom, then forgot to put it to use, he didn’t gripe. But Oggy needed it, so he swept their room and took his broom.

When a buddy had an issue but no resolution, they would often turn to Oggy for clarity. If he didn’t have an answer, he’d find one and pass it on.

“John was like a saint,” said Staff Sgt. Armando Estillore. “He liked to help people any way he could.”

It’s safe to say the guys will be thinking about Oggy this Memorial Day.

While many Americans back home associate the holiday with barbecues, a long weekend and the unofficial beginning of summer, others, especially those affiliated with the military, know it’s much more.

It’s a time to pause and reflect on the sacrifices made by those in uniform.

“Now that I’ve been in combat, I understand a little more why we have it,” said Spc. Jennese Wimbley, who works in a vehicle repair shop for the 145th Support Battalion.

While Wimbley, an active-duty soldier, is from Georgia, most of the personnel in the support battalion are with the Idaho National Guard. Two of the garage greasers in her shop, Spc. Justin Moyer and Spc. Shawn Scott, are 21-year-olds who hail from Mountain Home.

“I think this year Memorial Day will mean more to our families than to us,” Scott said.

Moyer, who has known Scott since junior high school, said the people of Mountain Home would probably put on quite a show, given that so many Idahoans are spending the holiday in Iraq.

In their hometown, which includes a U.S. Air Force base, the local American Legion post has affixed yellow ribbons to light standards and traffic signs along a main boulevard. Each ribbon bears the name of a troop deployed to Iraq.

“I never realized how good I had it until I came here,” Moyer said.

The two admit their tour in Iraq has helped them mature at an accelerated pace. The separation from home has strengthened Moyer’s relationship with his stepfather, while Scott and his sister, Renee, have never been closer.

Two months ago, the pair volunteered for a ramp ceremony. They helped carry to a waiting plane the casket of a deceased soldier assigned to the 278th Regimental Combat Team.

“They call it a detail,” Moyer said, “but we volunteered for it. So I think of it as more a privilege, really, for a fallen soldier.”

When a soldier dies in Iraq, they are taken to a military mortuary before their remains are carried aboard an Air Force transport plane and flown home. Army Staff Sgt. Adam Krause took care of Ogburn.

“Everybody is treated the same,” Krause said, “with dignity, honor and respect.”

Krause, a mortician from Middleton, Idaho, is the mortuary affairs officer for the 116th Brigade Combat Team in Kirkuk. There is a serenity about him that makes a person feel as if they are talking to a chaplain.

For the first five months in country, Krause was handling about one fatality a month. But in the past eight days, he’s had two cases.

The average life expectancy of a man is about 74 years, Krause said. In war, though, it’s generally the young, not the old, who perish. So the routine of life and death runs off course.

“I’m not an infantryman. I’m not a trucker [driving a perilous route]. I’m a mortician,” Krause said as he sat in his office. “If I can do the job to the best of my ability, then that’s what the Army has asked me to do, and what my country expects no less of me.”

At Ogburn’s memorial service on Friday, there were testimonials to a man seemingly plagued by tragedy. He suffered the heart-wrenching fate of burying his own child, his parents died in a vehicle accident in late 2003 and a cousin died earlier this year.

But through it all, Oggy — a soft-spoken, meticulous gentleman — remained grounded and willing to help.

At 45, he could still run like the wind, his friends said, but he’d stop on a dime to help just about anybody.

When his platoon buddies were asked what he would say to them if he could speak to them now, there was no hesitation.

“He wouldn’t be worried about himself,” Spc. Jeremy Stauffer said. “He’d be worrying about everyone else.”

“For years, John saluted the flag,” Chaplain (1st Lt.) Ben Hines said at the memorial service. “Now the flag salutes him.”