The "homecoming" of Sgt. Joey Montgomery in Southern Indiana was both difficult and stirring. The Scottsburg, IN native was killed near Bagdhad on May 22 and his body returned to his family the day after Memorial Day.

On Memorial Day itself, I found myself at two services: an anti-war gathering at Christ Church Cathedral in which both civilian and military dead were remembered, and the traditional military honors at Zachary Taylor National Cemetery.

Both were moving in their own ways.

And, participants from both events can find one plot of common ground. Both believe that this is no time for apathy. With U.S. servicemembers fighting and dying in Iraq and Afghanistan, the underlying message from both events was that Americans should recognize what is happening everyday, and not just on Memorial Day.

I have always found Zachary Taylor National Cemetery to be a peaceful and patriotic place. It reminds me of my mother teaching her children the World War One poem "In Flanders Fields," admonishing us to remember that those grave markers are not props, but represent real lives and real sacrifice.

"We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders Fields."

As I stood in the shade of a tree toward the front of the grounds for the program, I looked down at the grave marker below me, a group of five members of the Army Air Corps in 1945, presumably killed together on the same warplane. I thought of their families standing at that spot more than 60 years earlier. An eleven year old boy (as it turns out the son of Iraq veteran and politician Andrew Horne) noticed the same marker and knelt to brush off grass clippings. It was a sweet moment, however far removed from World War II.

Fast forward to Freeman Field in Seymour, Indiana, ironically the home for air training during World War II. Though much of the original airfield property has been parceled out for businesses, a working airport remains. And that is where a charter jet carrying Joey Montgomery's body landed after making similar stops in Detroit and Fargo.

Scottsburg Mayor Bill Graham had encouraged the media to recognize his nephew's ultimate sacrifice. The Indiana National Guard set aside an area for our cameras near the hearse.

I took some notes, but I knew that the images of this day would speak volumes more than I could. So, when Montgomery's wife, the mother of their three children met her worst fears in receiving his casket, I choked back tears. And as other family surrounded the flag draped coffin and laid hands on it, the lump in my throat was somehow deeply personal.

I imagined my own tight knit family. I thought of my children. I thought of my country.

A reporter needs to have enough distance from a story to offer the best perspective for the viewer. But, a reporter never stops being human. And, my sympathy and admiration that day were deeply felt.

When I returned to the newsroom, a voice mail was waiting for me. How dare we show the widow in her nightmare? Do we not have any respect?

I wish the caller had left her name. It is a conversation newsrooms should have, to determine what is gained by airing certain images. The caller suggested that "ratings" trumped taste in showing this homecoming.

I would have told her in my return phone call that Missie Montgomery's personal grief was a public testament to her husband's sacrifice. The media kept our distance from all the family, except for the appointed spokesman, Mayor Graham. And, he had requested that we be present and document this very personal but very American story.

This is, indeed, no time for apathy. In a war that has not changed life on the homefront much at all for non-military families, a TV camera is a useful tool to remind all of us of how it has profoundly changed the lives of many others.

Regardless of your views on this or any war, we can all agree on that.