But unlike the young men of generations gone by, Wells did his fighting with a joystick and buttons -- playing "War: Final Assault" on Monday at the Tilt video arcade in the Rogue Valley Mall. And when the fighting ended, both "soldiers" walked away healthy, headed to the counter for a break and more quarters.

Hundreds of thousands of veterans, including many in the Rogue Valley, spent Monday remembering buddies who weren't lucky enough to walk away, who had to fight battles that were all too real and had much higher stakes.

But Memorial Day has lost some of its significance to younger Americans fortunate enough not have lived through a prolonged military conflict.

"I'm not sure how to celebrate," confessed Wells, who lives in Phoenix. "I don't have any links to it. It's just another day."

Americans have long spent Memorial Day focused more on recreation than remembrance, but war and "the ultimate sacrifice" are becoming increasingly abstract concepts to a generation that has largely known peace.

"It's too hard to relate with something that happened, in many cases, before you were born," said a 27-year-old man waiting to play the War game, too embarrassed about spending the holiday in the arcade to give his name. "My generation had the Gulf War.

But that was over and done in, what, 100 days?"

Monday's observance of Memorial Day came with U.S. forces three months into a NATO bombing campaign in Kosovo. Still, services like the one at Memory Gardens Mortuary and Memorial Park in Medford were attended mostly by older folks, either veterans or the spouses and children of veterans.

Scott Graham, 18, one of the few younger people at the service, came to honor his grandfather, Lee Owen Graham, a World War II veteran who died three years ago. Graham says his grandfather didn't talk in detail about the war but that hasn't kept it from his thoughts.

"I think about it a lot," said Graham, who plans to enter the Air Force after graduating from North Medford High School this month.

Veterans at Monday's ceremony at Memory Gardens said they don't want the sacrifices they and others made to be forgotten, but they acknowledge reluctance to talk much with younger people about war.

"As you get older, it's something you want to forget," says Victor DeMille, a World War II veteran from Medford.

Veterans said they are glad younger generations haven't had to endure what theirs did.

"What everyone here has done has allowed them to go camping and things," said Medford resident Michael Footh, a Vietnam veteran and commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars Chapter 1833.

Teaching younger Americans about those sacrifices is increasingly difficult.

"Americans grow up with war as something that happens out there" rather than at home, said William Hughes, a political science professor at Southern Oregon University.

Part of the difficulty, Hughes said, is that the reasons behind recent military actions -- such as the bombing in Kosovo -- have been hard for people to understand.

"How can war have a meaning for people who don't understand the context in which the war is being fought?" he said. "What we are not reflecting on anymore is the meaning of war, and that's a shame."

Films like "Saving Private Ryan" and "Schindler's List" have helped spread greater understanding of the anguish of war. But fictional characters can only carry the understanding so far.

Hughes remembers his trip to see "Saving Private Ryan" and the response of a couple in their 20s seated behind him.

"They watched it as though it was a Schwarzenegger action film," he said. "It's a technological exercise. People looked at it very much as an abstract."

Julie and Jeremy DaVee of Medford disagreed. The couple, both 32, admit they didn't do much to observe the holiday this year but said "Saving Private Ryan" helped open their eyes about World War II.