MOST OF US believe in honoring those who have fought and died for our country.

We notice on Veterans Day and Memorial Day, occasionally give to local memorials and support veterans in efforts to promote the flag and patriotism.

But aside from that minimal involvement, we soon enough go back to being preoccupied with everyday life until the next official veterans event rolls around.

There are those among us, people who have lost a loved one because of a war, who don't ever forget.

Some of them locally have just been honored for efforts to put a permanent memorial in Washington to veterans who died after Vietnam from ailments contracted there.

Ruth and Barry Fitzgerald of Fredericksburg are key organizers of the In Memory Foundation, which has been working since 1995 to install a plaque near the Vietnam Veterans Memorial to honor a group not mentioned on the Wall.

They are all the men and women who served in the Vietnam War and later died as a result of their service.

Many of those the national In Memory Foundation wants honored are military men and women still suffering and dying from post-traumatic stress disorder or cancers linked to exposure to the defoliant Agent Orange.

Recently, key members or supporters of the In Memory Foundation were honored by another national group dedicated to remembering the "forgotten" veterans.

The Order of the Silver Rose, a New Orleans-based group that awards Silver Rose medallions to Vietnam Vets who suffer or have died from Agent Orange-related cancers, recently included the Fitzgeralds and a handful of others for their work in honor of veterans.

Others awarded the silver medallions in the Fredericksburg area included Nicolina Corey, Jim Mann, Walter Jervis Sheffield, Scott Howson and Bill and Susan Beck, all of Fredericksburg; and Sam and Linda Thompson, of Culpeper.

A press release for the Order of the Silver Rose notes that the group was founded in 1997 by Mary Elizabeth Marchand of Utah after the loss of her father, a career Navy man who died from Agent Orange-related lung cancer.