When Mason DeFrancesco initially returned home to Concord from four years of service in the Marines, he spent his first few Memorial Days going to the New Hampshire State Cemetery in Boscawen and thinking of those he knew who didn’t return home.

The headstones provided a physical reminder of what the last Monday in May represents for him.

“Memorial Day is a day of remembrance,” said DeFrancesco, who spent part of his service in Iraq. “It is not a day of celebrating veterans as a whole. A lot of veterans do have tough Memorial Days, because we’ve lost people that we became brothers with. We became a family, and some of our family members didn’t make it back.”

In more recent years, he hasn’t gone to the veterans’ cemetery as much. He has found that he doesn’t need the location in order to reflect, although it helps sometimes. Now, he usually spends a quiet Memorial Day at home or participates in a local parade. He chafes at the notion of the day being recognized as a “holiday” and the commercialization of something that feels solemn.

“This isn’t necessarily a day for sales and deals and reasons to do things like having barbecues and things of that nature,” he said.

DeFrancesco joined the Concord Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1631 soon after his service ended and found a close-knit community of veterans in his home city. He now serves as the Post Commander in Concord and takes an active interest in raising awareness for issues impacting veterans, including mental health and the transition back to civilian life.

“You have to keep in mind that there are those across the country that are remembering, effectively, family members that they’ve lost in combat or through the dark times, such as mental health issues, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and unfortunately, a lot of veterans, to suicide. Those are still our family members, whether we knew them directly or not.”

For 101-year-old Floyd Severance, who served in World War II, Memorial Day carries reminders of the devastation he and others experienced during battle.

“I lost a lot of friends, a lot of buddies. And you don’t just lose one. We lost squads,” he said.

His service took him to several critical locations during the war, including Ardennes, the Rhineland and Normandy.

“I think of veterans,” Severance said. “We were called the greatest generation god ever created. And I believe it, because it’s not just the veterans. It’s the people at home. For every combat soldier, it takes 10 behind them, and so I believe they should be remembered as well as the veterans. Having been in the service, I know what they did, and they should be remembered.”

He doesn’t like to talk about his time in battle, but those he lost have stayed with him, even eight decades later.

Navy veteran Ken Georgevits, who served for 26 years, took part in over 1,500 military funerals in his capacity as an aerospace engineering duty officer.

Memorial Day can bring up memories of these experiences, from the procession in the cemetery to the presentation of the American flag to the deceased service member’s family.

He finds himself “thinking about the times I’ve done the funerals, and then saying, there for the grace of God, go I,” Georgevits said.

Some people don’t consider the difference between Veterans’ Day and Memorial Day, said Georgevits, who often leads presentations in local schools on these days of remembrance. To him, the former entails celebrating those who raised their right hands and swore an oath of military service to their country. The latter commemorates those no longer alive.

“That’s what I want people to be thinking about on Memorial Day, is, would you raise your right hand?” he said.

Georgevits, Severance and DeFrancesco all agreed that the experience of having served is one that only other service members can truly understand. When people say, “Thank you for your service,” Georgevits wants them to consider the impact of these words.

“It’s almost become a punch line, and I don’t like that,” he said. “The sincerity is just not always there. Many cases it is. But if you’re going to say ‘Thank you for your service,’ mean it.”

DeFrancesco hopes that Memorial Day offers a reminder of the personal impact of serving one’s country.

“As a society at home, I think we’ve lost what being a veteran actually means and the actual sacrifice that the individual and their families have to go through, for that part, to earn the title of an American veteran,” he said.

Memorial Day and Veterans’ Day are the two “pre-designated” calendar days relating to veterans, DeFrancesco said, but the struggles facing veterans and the significance of their service do not disappear on other days.

“I really believe that there should be room in everybody’s hearts for veterans every day of the year,” he said.

Rachel Wachman can be reached at rwachman@cmonitor.com