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This morning, At War published an account by Luke Ryan about the day he lost his best friend and three other teammates to a buried explosive in Kandahar Province. They were killed on Oct. 6, 2013, the day before the 12th anniversary of the American-led invasion of Afghanistan.

Publishing this on the Friday before Memorial Day had me thinking about the ways in which the country has commemorated this holiday in the past. I dug through The Times’s archives, looking at coverage that immediately followed the end of American wars. I found the same language, the same calls for enduring peace and the same questions raised about the condition of service members after they return home — talking points that have been recycled for the last century.