Aerial drones and roving robots have taken over the work of America's fighting forces. The remaining humans in the military are mostly concerned with Wiccan worship, transgender issues, and health care controversies at the Veteran's Administration. Maybe it's time to start honoring some real heroes on Memorial Day: the Tea Party candidates who lost their primaries to "RINO" Republican incumbents.

What does America's military even do these days, anyway? Russia stomps all over us, and our supposed patriots in the Heartland just swoon over Vladimir Putin's manly courage instead of planning an invasion of Moscow. An important jet plane disappears, and America does nothing but turn over its cable-news networks to a constant stream of Malaysian propaganda. Some children were kidnapped somewhere, and all our next president Hillary Clinton can do is post something on Twitter.

Yet even in these dark times of decayed greatness, America has "the right stuff." You see it in men like Tim Donnelly, a former Mexican hunter and small-time hustler in Southern California's ghoulish "Inland Empire." Tim could've remained in poverty and obscurity forever, but he held fast to his own American Dream: Run for minor state offices in heavily right-wing districts as a Tea Party fanatic until a comfortable Republican forgot to campaign and lost the lucrative seat.

Now Tim Donnelly is running for governor of California, against the immensely popular Jerry Brown. Of course Tim will not win, but he'll do well enough to run for the U.S. Congress next time around, and there is no sweeter Road to Riches than settling into a fixed GOP seat in the House of Representatives for the next dozen years. And when it's time to resign over a buggering scandal and trade in that paltry $174,000 salary for real money, the Tea Party militant finally gets his due: millions upon millions of dollars from lobbying and consulting.

But as we know from pre-Vietnam war movies, sometimes a faultless hero falls before he gets his medals and glory and luxurious life in Washington. And that's what happened on Super Tuesday last week, when a number of ideologically pure and intellectually gifted Tea Party patriots were repeatedly stabbed in the lungs by the bayonets of Big Government incumbents.

Matt Bevin, the "Kentucky Ham," was certain to defeat the smug turtle-pansy Mitch McConnell in Tuesday's Senate primary, but what McConnell lacks in American masculinity is more than made up for with his sleazy maneuvering. Somehow, McConnell defeated Bevin, and a once-proud America is one step closer to death.

Memorial Day was created to give us strength as the bodies of our brave fighters piled up—from Normandy to Gettysburg, Pearl Harbor to Fallujah, Korea to Vietnam, Lebanon to Little Bighorn, Afghanistan to Atlanta.

And now is the time to add to this hallowed list all of those who fell in primary battles against evil, entrenched Republican incumbents. Matt Bevin, this Memorial Day is your Memorial Day.

Bryan Smith, you may have been destroyed by incumbent Washington insider and borderline communist Congressman Mike Simpson, but this Memorial Day the nation's few remaining patriots will remember you.

Russ Fulcher, you lost your Tea Party challenge to Idaho's Republican governor, but that's only because that tricky RINO let those two lunatics take part in the debate.

You guys are losers, but you are losers with the moral advantage.

One day, this country will be nothing but guys like you, because New York and California are going to split off and become walled estates for the super rich. And when Memorial Day comes again, in the decades and centuries to come, the mouth-breathing hillbillies and rednecks and dingbats will put on their clean pants and solemnly remember your struggles.

Ken Layne writes the American Almanac for Gawker.

[Image by Jim Cooke]