During Monday’s Memorial Day commemorations, we were reminded that many of those who have made the ultimate sacrifice during their service with the armed forces of the United States have done so during times of peace or as a result of training incidents gone awry or other accidents while on duty.

War is clearly a dangerous place for a soldier, marine, airman or sailor, but peace can carry its own dangers, and the pain of having lost a loved one is no less for those whose family members died in a military accident than it is for those whose family members died in combat. Memorial Day was about recognizing all of them.

Much of the work done by the U.S. military every day — and perhaps most of the work, when one gets to the heart of the matter — has nothing directly to do with fighting the nation’s enemies. Training and administrative activities account for huge portions of any service member’s life.

Then there are the many humanitarian activities the U.S. military undertakes around the world every year. Recently we learned of one Suffolk man who’s involved in just such an effort in a remote part of Asia where thousands of people have been killed in earthquakes.

U.S. Marine Cpl. David A. Waterfield Jr. is with the 3rd Marine Expeditionary Brigade, based in Okinawa, Japan. The unit was deployed to Nepal about two weeks after the magnitude-7.8 earthquake hit the Asian country, killing more than 8,000 people and leveling many villages.

The Marines are delivering aid such as blankets and food to the hardest-hit areas of the country, Waterfield told the Suffolk News-Herald recently. But even that duty is not without risk. The Marines lost six of their own in a helicopter crash that killed all eight people who were aboard it, on a mission to deliver relief supplies to a remote part of Nepal.

At the Albert G. Horton Jr. Memorial Veterans Cemetery on Monday, a retired Navy commander with 27 years in the service teared up as he described the loss of a family friend, Lt. Sean Snyder, a Navy helicopter pilot who died in the crash of an MH-53E Sea Dragon during a training mission off the coast of Virginia Beach on Jan. 8, 2014. Including Snyder, three of five crew members died as a result of the crash.

The dangers for members of the U.S. armed services are real, whether in wartime or peacetime. Our respect for those who are willing to face those dangers is just as real. Whether on Memorial Day or Veterans Day or on any of the other days of the year, America owes these great men and women its unfailing gratitude.