The Importance of Honoring Our Forefathers

A common thing you hear out there in conversations with people is stuff like appeals to heroism in battle as a justification for present behaviors. Would this sort of trope, is that the same kind of reasoning as the, oh, we need to honor the wishes of this dead person who set aside this trust to do X, Y, and Z? You know, I wonder about that. But what's definitely true is that we do talk in terms of obligations to the dead and obligations to the past.