There is one big problem though: Those soldiers didn't die in the defense of our country. Instead, they died in the defense of empire and hegemony.

For obvious reasons, U.S. officials, as well as many of the family members of the deceased, can't bring themselves to admit that and so they settle for just mindlessly repeating the mantra, "They died defending our country,"

Consider the Spanish American War in 1898. Did Spain ever attack and invade the United States? Nope. The U.S. government intervened in a war of independence that was being waged between the Spanish Empire and its colonial possessions, including Cuba and the Philippines. Thus, U.S. soldiers clearly didn't die in the defense of our country in that war. This is especially true with respect to those U.S. soldiers who died in the Philippines in a war designed to replace Spanish rule with U.S. rule.