"I really do feel that this team is just going to continue to improve through the year," the 2008 Formula One world champion said at a promotional media day for next month's British Grand Prix at Silverstone.

"Once we understand these tyres more, which we will eventually get to, then I think another win is definitely on the books," he told Sky Sports News television.

Mercedes won in Monaco with Germany's Nico Rosberg, who also secured the team's fourth successive pole position, while Hamilton finished fourth. The victory was Mercedes's first since China in April last year.

The victory was clouded, however, by the revelation that Mercedes had tested with Pirelli earlier in the month without telling other teams and seemingly in breach of the sporting regulations that ban teams from in-season testing.

After a protest by world champions Red Bull and Ferrari, the governing International Automobile Federation (FIA) is now considering whether to send the matter to an international tribunal that could impose heavy sanctions.

Mercedes and Pirelli have both denied doing anything underhand or gaining any competitive advantage over rival teams from the Barcelona test.

"I think it's important that we just stay focused and don't be distracted by a lot of stuff that's around us," said Hamilton, who made his F1 debut in 2007 when McLaren were fined a record $100 million and excluded from the constructors' championship for a spying controversy involving Ferrari data.

"It's so easy to do that (be distracted), and especially for the drivers and the team when we are at the track," continued the Briton, who is in his first season with Mercedes after leaving McLaren.

"I think it's important we just keep our minds clear and just keep doing the job at hand." (Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Clare Fallon)

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkey's most violent riots in decades may have been started by the destruction of a small Istanbul park, but they have exploded in a show of defiance at what many see as the creeping authoritarianism of Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan.

In power for more than a decade, Erdogan's Islamist-rooted AK Party has increased its share of the vote in each of the past three elections, ushered in unprecedented political stability and overseen some of the fastest economic growth in Europe.

Now in his last term as prime minister, Erdogan is trying to leave his stamp on Turkey by recasting foreign policy, overhauling the constitution and even transforming the ancient Istanbul skyline.

But some, including former supporters, accuse him of growing increasingly authoritarian, muzzling the media, tightening his AK party's grip on state institutions and putting religion at the centre of politics in violation of Turkey's secular constitution.

"If it were up to the prime minister, I would be wearing a head scarf," said Tugba Bitiktas, a 25-year-old unemployed university graduate, before she joined anti-government protests in central Istanbul late on Saturday.

"All this government worries about is rewarding its own. Those with a different voice are marginalized. That's what I'm protesting," she said, before donning swimming goggles and a surgical mask to stave off the effects of tear gas.

Bitiktas was one of tens of thousands protesting in Istanbul, where more than 1,000 people were hurt in three days of clashes with riot police. Similar protests were staged in the capital Ankara and in cities across the country.

Erdogan accused the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) of stoking the demonstrations, while other government officials warned the unrest was a plot to set the ground for a military intervention, as has occurred in the past.

But the protesters come from a range of political backgrounds, from environmentalists to nationalists and the hard left-wing.

The ferocity of the protests must have jolted Erdogan, whose party has won the biggest share of Turkish votes in decades and is now said to have his sights on the presidency before his self-imposed three-term limit expires in 2015.

The 59-year-old former Istanbul mayor is campaigning for constitutional change that would give executive powers to the largely ceremonial presidency.

Erdogan has tackled some of Turkey's thorniest problems, including a major peace initiative this year to end a 28-year war with Kurdish militants. He is an important U.S. partner in efforts to end the civil war in Syria, though opinion polls show government policy towards Turkey's neighbor is unpopular.

FROM FOUR TO THOUSANDS

The centre of the protests is Istanbul's Taksim Square and the adjacent Gezi Park, a green patch in Europe's fastest-growing city which dedicates just 1.5 percent of its land to public parks, according to the World Cities Culture Report.

A group of four protesters trying to stop a handful of trees from being cut down for a road-expansion project mushroomed last week into thousands of people, who refashioned Gezi into a festival campsite with concerts, speeches and yoga sessions.

They oppose a plan to pedestrianise Taksim and raze Gezi Park to rebuild a 19th Century Ottoman barracks that once marked the outer limits of the city. In its new form, Erdogan has said the ground floor of the replica barracks could serve as shopping centre or museum, topped with luxury flats.

"When citizens are not consulted about even a park, then that country is not democratic," said Betul Tanbay, professor at Bosphorus University and member of the Taksim Platform that has campaigned for more than year for a project based on consensus.

"This has now gone beyond tunnels and parks into a wider movement. There is a lot of dissatisfaction among a large segment of people," she said.

Taksim is just one of the government's construction projects that include the world's biggest airport, a $3 billion third bridge across the Bosphorus and a $10 billion shipping canal that would turn half of Istanbul into an island.

Aggrandising projects, Erdogan's critics say, distract from more pressing issues in the nation of 76 million.

HISTORY OF PROTEST

Taksim has a particular resonance. While other Istanbul squares embody the grandeur of the Islamic Ottoman Empire, Taksim pays homage to the secular ideals of the republic founded in 1923 after the empire collapsed. More recently, the square was the site of a 1977 massacre of up to 40 leftists during a May Day rally.

"Taksim carries enormous significance for different circles ... To bulldoze Taksim without any real social consensus is to harm an important public space not just for Istanbul, but for all of Turkey," said Eyup Muhcu, head of the Chamber of Architects, in an interview before the protests.

Celebrations were banned in Taksim for decades until Erdogan allowed them again in 2010, only to shut the square this May 1 because of the construction, prompting weeks of small protests that snowballed towards this weekend's riots.

As the protests gathered steam, Erdogan appeared to dig in, ignoring an interim Istanbul court ruling on Friday that blocked work on the barracks project as judges sought more testimony.

He went on to announce the demolition of an iconic Taksim auditorium dedicated to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the modern Turkish Republic, and the erection of a mosque.

Efforts to build a mosque at Taksim have been floated for at least 40 years but never gained enough support. "I don't need the permission of the (opposition), and I don't need it from a few looters. The voters already gave me permission for this," Erdogan said.

THOUSANDS JAILED

Building a mosque in Taksim would have been unimaginable a decade ago. Turkey's military, self-appointed guardians of secularism, kept a short rein on civilian governments, staging three outright coups and forcing a fourth government to resign.

With popular backing, Erdogan's government has tamed the army over the past decade, mainly through legal cases that jailed dozens of top brass for their alleged roles in plots against Erdogan and his predecessors.

That has allowed him to express more comfortably his religious sentiments, which are widely reflected in Turkey.

For much of the first half of his term in office, Erdogan focused on political reforms that aimed to bring Turkey in line with European Union political criteria. Kurdish cultural rights were granted, religious minorities enjoyed greater freedoms and the overall public discourse was expanded.

Despite the unrest of recent days, Erdogan remains Turkey's most popular politician, with no obvious rival either within the ruling party or the opposition.

"Turkish secularism was too rigid to create harmony in society where you have a fairly observant religious population," said Mustafa Akyol, the author of "Islam Without Extremes".

"Secularists now fear Erdogan wants to reverse things, since he faces no challenges," he said.

Since 2008, thousands of government opponents from across the political spectrum have been jailed, including university students, academics, lawyers, Kurdish activists, military officers and the alleged leaders of ultra-nationalist gangs.

"An administration that has no opposition for balance and no free media to monitor it can easily spin out of control," said Kadri Gursel, a columnist for Milliyet newspaper and chairman of the International Press Institute's Turkish committee.

"The Turkish experiment has now answered the question of whether moderate Islam and democracy are compatible without checks and balances."

RELIGIOUS CONSERVATISM

Legislation passed last month that restricts alcohol sales raises fears over other areas of private life the government may seek to regulate, particularly after Erdogan acknowledged the law was based on the tenets of Islam.

Perhaps conscious of the concerns, he also said it was his constitutional duty to protect the health of young Turks.

Other issues, including two high-profile blasphemy cases, in which a well-known pianist and writer were separately given prison sentences for comments on Twitter, show the government is remodeling Turkey, Gursel said. "Turkey isn't just becoming more religious. It's being made more religious," he said.

A colorful demonstration in the capital Ankara last month, when 200 people kissed to protest a morality campaign, ended in bloodshed when a group of Islamists carrying knives attacked protesters, stabbing one person, Hurriyet newspaper reported.

Over his tenure, Erdogan, who served a brief prison sentence for reading a poem deemed Islamic when he was mayor in the 1990s, has spoken more openly of raising a religious generation.

He has tried to restrict women's access to abortions to encourage larger families and lifted curbs on the public expression of religion, such as once-strict limits on wearing the Islamic-style headscarf.

At the protest on Saturday, Metin, a 30-year-old doctor who described himself as a devout Muslim, said he had lost his faith in Erdogan over the years.

"I say my prayers, and I fast, and I considered voting for Erdogan in the past because I believed he would help the oppressed, since he had been," Metin said, declining to give his last name because he feared reprisals at work.

"But now that he has the power, Erdogan has become the oppressor. He exploits our religious feelings for profit. He has become arrogant, and that is a sin."

(Editing by Nick Tattersall and David Stamp)

LONDON, May 27 (Reuters) - The real mystery about Pirelli's 'secret' tyre test with Mercedes is why it took the rest of Formula One so long to find out about it.

The shock revelation was the talk of the Monaco Grand Prix weekend, with Ferrari and champions Red Bull putting in protests that could see Mercedes end up in front of a governing FIA tribunal charged with breaking a ban on in-season testing.

Secrets are hard to keep in the Formula One pit lane and paddock, accessible only by swiping a coveted pass through an electronic turnstile, where there is generally more spying going on than in a James Bond movie.

Teams have in the past paid photographers for close-ups of rival cars, while reporters are forever chasing a steady drip-feed of rumours and deliberate leaks designed to unsettle competitors.

Little escapes the eyes and ears of mechanics and the 'truckies' whose job it is to set up the palatial team 'motorhomes'.

In-season testing has been banned for years, a move agreed by all teams to keep costs down, although Pirelli can conduct their own limited tyre tests with an older car.

Yet Mercedes and Pirelli managed to hold a three day, 1,000 km test at Barcelona's Circuit de Catalunya, in the week after this month's Spanish Grand Prix, with a 2013 car and seemingly without anyone noticing.

Mercedes suggested that was hardly their fault.

"We left everything there. The garages, the buses, the trucks, all the engineering offices. Nothing was secret. We didn't Twitter. Should we have?" said their motorsport head Toto Wolff.

Dismantling a multi-story motorhome, such as the glass-fronted one used by McLaren or the 'energy station' favoured by world champions Red Bull, can take days.

Surely, paddock insiders wondered, there must have been someone around other than Mercedes and Pirelli employees to wonder why one team was not packing up and what Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg were still doing there.

"It's remarkable nobody knew a current car with current drivers was running around on the Barcelona track," agreed Red Bull principal Christian Horner, who found out on Saturday after news leaked out of a drivers' meeting.

"You have to say Mercedes are good at holding a secret. Most other things you hear about, somebody is going there or leaving, but they have managed to keep this one remarkably quiet," added Horner, whose team has its own @redbullf1spy address on Twitter.

HEAVY SANCTIONS

Mercedes could now face heavy sanctions. If the Monaco winners are found to have flouted the regulations, they could be stripped of points, fined or even excluded.

Should they be cleared, that would open another can of worms since it would open the door for others to carry out tests and might lead to the renewal of a 'spending war' that the sport can ill afford at a time of rising costs.

Ferrari have pushed repeatedly for in-season testing to be re-introduced and team principal Stefano Domenicali said that was one of the reasons for their protest.

"If this is possible we will be the first to raise our arms to make sure we can do the same, because as you know Ferrari has always been very much pushing to try to do in-season testing on the track," he told reporters.

Apart from resolving the legality or otherwise of what Mercedes have done - and Mercedes were adamant that they had done nothing wrong - considerable damage has already been done.

Horner and other principals expressed concern at the lack of transparency - with neither Pirelli nor Mercedes notifying other teams about the test - and also suggested Mercedes had done it to gain an advantage.

The latter accusation, denied by Pirelli and Mercedes, could prove the most pernicious if the 'Silver Arrows' perform strongly in Canada in two weeks' time when modified tyres are due to be introduced.

Voices in the paddock were already suggesting on Sunday that any Mercedes championship challenge could be considered tainted, even if Rosberg's Monaco victory had been flagged up long before the test given his pole positions in Bahrain and Spain.

Horner said Mercedes's behaviour was certainly 'underhand'.

"Whenever you run these cars you are learning - about reliability, about the mechanical side of the car, about how the tyres act and behave," he said. "For Mercedes to claim they didn't benefit from that test would be difficult to believe.

"For any of the competitors to have the ability to go tyre testing, using tyres that are going to be used at upcoming grands prix, there is a benefit to that."

Horner said the test would have cost Mercedes hundreds of thousands of dollars in engine mileage, component time, overheads and the logistics of running the car.

"We talk an awful lot on saving costs, yet we spent three hours on Friday talking about in-season testing trying to find a solution," he added. "Now one team has already done a huge amount of it." (Editing by Ed Osmond)

The State Department has not lived up to the Administrations broad and unambiguous promises of cooperation with Congress. Therefore, I am left with no alternative but to compel the State Department to produce relevant documents through a subpoena, Issa said in a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry.

Issas demand notably includes any documents and internal communications crafted by longtime Hillary Clinton confidantes Philippe Reines and Cheryl Mills. Democrats have charged that Republicans are eager to use the tragedy to cripple Clintons rumored 2016 presidential aspirations.

The Republican lawmaker is seeking documents and communications from 10 current or former senior State Department officials, including Reines and Mills.gives Kerry until June 7 to produce them for the committee.

For months, Republicans have pounded the administrations handling of the Sept. 11, 2012, attack that killed four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens. In mid-May, President Barack Obama denounced the GOP's onslaught as a "."

Much of the Republican criticism has focused on talking points that Congress requested in order to explain the tragedy to the public without spilling national security secrets. The talking points, drafted by the CIA with input from the State Department and other agencies in a process overseen by the White House, wrongly described the attack as growing spontaneously out of a demonstration.

In his letter, Issa referred to an email the day after the attacks in whichsaid she had told the Libyan governor that "the group that conducted the attacks, Ansar al-Sharia, is affiliated with Islamic terrorists." At one point in , the document noted that the group's leadership had denied ordering the attack, but not that some of its members might have taken part. The final version did not include that point.

Issa said that the process that led to that talking point being scrubbed is "at the heart of the Committee's ongoing investigation" and that the panel wants to see who else, if anyone, shaped the process.

Issa did not say why he was skeptical of the explanation provided inby the administrationand produced to Issa's committee. Then-State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland objected to "arming members of Congress to start making assertions to the media that we ourselves are not making because we don't want to prejudice the investigation."

"Why do we want Hill to be fingering Ansar al Sharia, when we aren't doing that ourselves until we have investigation results?" she asked.

Republicans have also pounded the State Department over Nuland's warning, in the same email, that including past CIA warnings about extremist threats in Benghazi "could be abused by Members to beat the State Department for not paying attention to Agency warnings so why do we want to feed that either? Concerned..."

that "publicly available information about the talking points creates the appearance that Administration officials were interested in sparing the State Department from political criticism in the wake of the attacks."

In response, the State Department said it had offered "an unprecedented degree of cooperation" with Congressbut stopped short of saying it would comply with this latest demand.

"The State Department remains committed to working cooperatively with the Congress and we will take stock of any new or outstanding requests for information, and determine the appropriate next steps," spokesman Patrick Ventrell said in a statement emailed to reporters.

A fourth woman has accused Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain of sexual harassment--this time in public. Sharon Bialek told reporters in a press conference Monday that Cain groped her and exhibited "sexually inappropriate" behavior toward her when he was head of the National Restaurant Association.

Bialek, a former NRA employee who worked for the association in between 1996 and 1997, said the encounter occurred shortly after she was laid off from the group's education fund in July 1997.

She said she had approached Cain for help in looking for a new job and had traveled to Washington, D.C., where she had dinner with the then-NRA head. She told reporters that upon her arrival in D.C. she discovered that Cain had secretly upgraded her hotel room to a suite.

After dinner, the two were sitting in his car when she claimed he "suddenly reached over and put his hand on my leg under my skirt and reached for my genitals" and moved her head toward his crotch.

"I was surprised and shocked, and I said, what are you doing? You know I have a boyfriend," Bialek recalled saying. "This is not what I came here for."

Bialak claimed that when she protested, Cain replied, "You want a job, right?

She told reporters Cain backed off after she asked him to stop, and he drove her back to her hotel.

Bialek, who identified herself as a stay-at-home single mom who lives in Chicago and is a registered Republican, said she didn't file a complaint with the NRA in part because she was no longer formally employed by the group--and also because she was "very embarrassed." She was joined at the press conference by her attorney, celebrity lawyer Gloria Allred, who offered sworn affidavits from two friends to whom Bialek spoke shortly after the alleged encounter.

"I was very very surprised and very shocked," Bialek said, adding that she had come forward to be a "face" for women who had been harassed by Cain. "I want you, Mr. Cain, to come clean. Just admit what you did. Admit you were inappropriate to people ... I implore you. Make this right."

The Cain campaign issued a statement denying Bialek's claims.

"All allegations of harassment against Mr. Cain are completely false," the campaign said in a statement. " Mr. Cain has never harassed anyone."

Bialek is the fourth woman to accuse Cain of sexual harassment when he was head of the NRA, but she's the only accuser who has spoken publicly.

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The National Association of Realtors said Tuesday that sales reached 4.65 million last year. That's up 9.2 percent from 2011 and the most since 2007. Sales are still below the roughly 5.5 million that are consistent with a healthy market.

Sales dipped in December to a pace of 4.94 million, down from 4.99 million in November. November's figure was revised lower, but was still the highest in three years.

The supply of available homes is shrinking as sales rise. That's pushing up prices. The inventory of homes for sale dropped to 1.82 million in December, the lowest in 12 years.

Still, the housing market is recovering and most analysts expect that should continue this year.

Steady hiring, record-low mortgage rates and a tight supply of new and previously occupied homes available for sale have helped boost sales and prices in most markets.

A measure of U.S. home prices rose 7.4 percent annually in November, real estate data provider CoreLogic said last week.That's the biggest annual increase since 2006, when the housing bubble began to burst. CoreLogic forecasts that home prices will rise 6 percent nationally this year.

Rising demand for homes has persuaded builders to step up construction, which adds to economic growth and hiring.

U.S. builders started work on homes in December at the fastest pace in 4 years, the government said last week. And builders finished 2012 as their best year for residential construction since the early stages of the housing crisis.

The gains in home building helped boost construction hiring in December by 30,000 jobs the most in 15 months.

LEEDS, England (Reuters) - New Zealand lost openers Peter Fulton and Hamish Rutherford before lunch in reaching 62 for two having quickly dismissed England for 354 on the third morning of the second and final test at Headingley.

Fulton got a leading edge after a promising start and was caught and bowled by Steven Finn for 28. Finn struck again just before the interval when Rutherford was caught in the gully by Ian Bell for 27.

Kane Williamson was four not out with Ross Taylor yet to score.

England had resumed on 337 for seven hoping to push towards 400 but lost their remaining three wickets for the addition of 17 runs in 24 minutes.

Trent Boult, who removed centurion Joe Root on Saturday in an impressive spell with the second new ball, claimed five for 57 with both he and Tim Southee swinging the ball on another sunny morning.

Matt Prior (39) added just a single to his overnight total when he flashed at Southee and Taylor snaffled a sharp chance at first slip.

Finn clubbed Boult for a delicious boundary through mid-on but tried an ambitious repeat from the next delivery that swung in and his off stump was sent flying.

Three balls later Boult wrapped up the innings, taking a low catch off his own bowling to dismiss Anderson.

It was Boult's second five-wicket haul in an innings against England this year after returning test-best figures of six for 68 in the drawn third test in Auckland in March.

Sprint said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on May 1 that the new director appointed by Tokyo-based SoftBank would oversee public safety concerns related to Sprint's wireless and wireline operations.

Chinese telecommunications equipment suppliers like Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, the world's second-largest maker of routers and other gear, and ZTE Corp, the fifth largest, have been blocked from making big pushes into the United States due to the national security concerns.

Dish Network Corp, SoftBank's rival for Sprint, is running a campaign against the Japanese firm, seeking to convince lawmakers and government reviewers that the deal poses national security risks.

SoftBank said it is committed to using only network equipment that is acceptable to the U.S. government and would not use equipment from Huawei on Sprint's network. Dish has not made such promises.

The proposal for a security director was first reported by the Wall Street Journal, which said the move could cost the company up to $1 billion. (http://link.reuters.com/tat38t)

The newspaper also reported that it was unusual for officials to exert such broad influence over how a company is run, citing people who follow such deals.

Sprint declined to comment. SoftBank could not be immediately reached for comment.

Dish, in line with its public relations campaign, said in a statement that "these reported steps do not adequately protect our national security interests." Dish added that it has concerns about the security of Sprint's "critical fiber backbone network," as well as Sprint's contracts with government agencies, law enforcement and defense customers.

(Reporting by Sakthi Prasad and Krithika Krishnamurthy in Bangalore; Editing by Daniel Magnowski and Jeffrey Benkoe)

Kerry, attending the African Union's 50th anniversary, backed the Nigerian government's efforts to root out Boko Haram, an al-Qaida-linked radical sect. But he said there is no excuse for abuses by armed forces in Nigeria's long neglected north, where President Goodluck Jonathan has declared emergency rule.

"We defend the right completely of the government of Nigeria to defend itself and to fight back against terrorists," Kerry said. He added, however, that he has raised his concerns with Nigerian officials to insist on the military "adhering to the highest standards and not itself engaging in atrocities."

"One person's atrocities do not excuse another's," Kerry said. "Revenge is not the motive. It's good governance, it's ridding yourself of a terrorist organization so that you can establish a standard of law that people can respect."

Speaking to reporters alongside Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, Kerry also blamed Sudan's government for much of the tension along its volatile border with South Sudan. He says residents in the contested areas of Blue Nile and South Kordofan don't want to be subjected to strict Islamist rules.

Both areas border the new nation of South Sudan, which gained independence in 2011 under an agreement that ended decades of civil war. Many residents are sympathetic to the South, and both areas have experienced regular violence in recent years.

"There are very significant border challenges, but they're bigger than that," Kerry said. "You have people who for a long time have felt that they want their secular governance and their identity respected."

"They don't want independence; they are not trying to break away from Sudan," he said. But he said the response from Sudan's government has been to "press on them through authoritarian means and violence an adherence to a standard that they simply don't want to accept with respect to Islamism."

"That's the fundamental clash," Kerry said.

He acknowledged, however, the North's concerns that the South is fueling rebels in the areas and said the U.S. would try to work with Ethiopia and other international partners to ease tensions. He said he'd soon appoint a new American envoy to both countries.

Kerry meets the foreign ministers of both Sudans later Saturday.

His meetings in Ethiopia's capital also include the U.N. and African Union chiefs and Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi.

The circumstances of their deaths are different. But the same words"loyal," "honorable," "selfless," "smart" and "fearless"surfaced again and again this week when family and friends remembered the American military service members close to them who sacrificed their lives for their country.

Yahoo News invited readers to mark Memorial Day by sharing their memories. Below are excerpts from their stories, which we published this week.

Charles Leon Gilliland (Photo courtesy of Deb Cooper)Tales of young bravery: Decades after Charles Leon Gilliland died in battle in Korea, his mother felt guilty about his death.

Gilliland, just 17 when he was killed in 1951, had written her letters asking for bullets for his pistol. She didnt send them, fearing it would land her in trouble. According to Deb Cooper, who shared her Uncle Charles story, her grandmother never forgave herself when she learned that Gillilands last moments were spent fighting with a knife because he lacked ammunition.

Here, from Cooper, is more about Gilliland, the youngest Korean War Medal of Honor recipient:

Uncle Charles loved playing Army as a child and always owned a gun. At 16, he tried to join the Marines, but he was turned away due to his age. My grandparents allowed Charles to join the Army on May 25, 1950, his 17th birthday.

I did not realize how important Uncle Charles was to my family and our nation. I was born 10 years after his death, and I did not always understand his heroics. Now, there are reminders everywhere in north-central Arkansas where he was born and lived: Memorials at the Baxter County Court House, a bridge crossing in Yellville, and the National Guard Center in Harrison are just a few.

In 1997, the USNS Gilliland was dedicated in his name. His official memorial is in Hawaii.

My mother and my grandmother told me stories of his bravery when I was a child. He was a young soldier, in the Army less than a year, when he stayed behind to let his platoon retreat to safety. He was never seen again.

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Peter Guenette (Photo courtesy of David Harland Rousseau)A soldiers protective instincts: Peter Guenette, a specialist fourth class, served in Company D in the Armys 101st Airborne Division in Vietnam. On May 18, 1968, he was about to fly to Hawaii for some R&R when he was bumped from the flight by a higher-ranking soldier serving in the rear echelon. Instead of sunning himself on a tropical beach, he was again on the front lines.

David Harland Rousseau, whose father served with Guenette in Vietnam, shares his story:

The men of Company D were closing in on a suspected enemy base camp in Quan Tan Uyen. Heavy fire from entrenched North Vietnam Army regulars rained down on the .

Peter and three other soldiers took cover in a shell hole and returned fire. Suddenly, an enemy grenade rolled into the crater between the soldiers. Without hesitation, Peter shouted a warning and covered the grenade with his body. He died instantly, but his selfless actions saved the lives of three men.

Sp4c. Guenette posthumously received the , which was presented to his wife, Susan, by President Richard Nixon in April 1970.

Peter had a protective instinct that revealed itself in all he didright until the last full measure.

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Ada and Clarence's engagement photo; Ada receives Clarence's Purple Heart. (Photos courtesy of Nannette Gilber …

Honoring a long-lost uncle and soldier: Clarence Reed served in the U.S. Army in France during World War II and died on April 7, 1945, shortly before V-E Day. His grandniece, Nannette Gilbert, didn't know she even had a Great Uncle Clarence until her great aunt, Ada Strausbaugh, died in 2011. Reed had been Ada's first husband, and while it wasn't a family secret that her great aunt was on her second marriage, Gilbert says, it was just something no one spoke of.

After her great aunt's death, Gilbert learned more about her Great Uncle Clarence:

Aunt Ada and Clarence were married on April 17, 1944, in Gallipolis, Ohio. Clarence, who was from Dexter, Ohio, joined the Army and was stationed in France during World War II. He didn't survive the war and died on April 7, 1945, less than a year after Ada and Clarence married.

They had no children together, and my aunt had no children in her second marriage. Since my grandmother was her closest relative, and my mother is already passed away, I inherited a large box of pictures and memorabilia after my aunt's death. Among those items, I found the marriage license, death notice, pictures and letters that Ada and Clarence mailed back and forth to each other as well as supporting documents for the Purple Heart that Clarence received posthumously and which was presented to Ada. She was buried with Clarence's Purple Heart.

It pains me to know that on Memorial Day almost 70 years after his death, I may be the only one left honoring his memory. I've tried to find distant relatives on his side of the family to no avail. So this year, and from now on, I will honor my Great Uncle Clarence Reed, who served his country and gave his life during World War II.

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Cpl. Jennifer M. Parcell (Photo courtesy of V. Wync Yarber)

You are loved and you are greatly missed: During a deployment to Iraq as part of the Marines Lioness Program, Cpl. Jennifer M. Parcell was killed by a female suicide bomber at a checkpoint in Anbar province on Feb. 7, 2007. She was just three weeks from returning to her base in Okinawa, Japan.

V. Wync Yarber, the Marine who assigned Parcell to the detachment, remembers her:

She didn't cast an imposing shadow at about 115 pounds and around 5 foot 4 inches tall, but she was every bit that hard-nosed Marine that you hear about.

I can remember when I first laid eyes on Jennifer M. Parcell. I remarked to one of my colleagues, "Is this Bring Your Little Sister to Work Day?" She barely looked old enough to have enlisted.

However, I was to find out that she was tough and had the ability to raise the performance of the Marines, or whomever, she was around. She didn't back away from a challenge and didn't complain when things didn't go exactly as planned. Whenever she heard her fellow Marines complaining, she would often admonish them by saying, "You guys sound like a bunch of little girls! ... SUCK IT UP!"

Though there have been many memorials dedicated to Parcell, and I even wear a bracelet on my left wrist commemorating her, I would much rather have her present, here on this planet. She was only 20 when she was whisked away from us.

So here is to Cpl. Jennifer Marie Parcell. You are loved and you are greatly missed.

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Spc. Charles Odums II (Photo courtesy of Joseph Estrada)

A promising young man: It was 4 a.m. on Memorial Day 2004 when Joseph Estrada, an Army physician assistant with the 1-8 Cavalry, learned that a bomb had killed one of his medics, Spc. Charles Odums II, the night before. Odums, who was the battalions first fatality during its yearlong tour, had saved another solders life just a week earlier.

Estrada, who saw Odums as a younger version of himself, remembers that Memorial Day:

Later that morning, many in the unit gathered in an eerie silence near the morgue to pay their respects. I stood alone, preferring to mourn in solitude. Others embraced, some consoled others and some discreetly wiped tears under dark sunglasses.

On cue, we formed a line between the morgue and the ambulance. Four medics entered the building to retrieve the stretcher carrying our fallen comrade. Someone called out commands as the litter bearers emerged with our friend's remains. Restrained sobs filled the air. With the ambulance loaded, we filed past its back doors, each pausing briefly for one last moment with our hero.

After the convoy had left, we huddled up once more as Sgt. Kortney Clemons led us in prayer. We eventually dispersed to spend a very somber, reflective Memorial Day remembering our departed brother.

I remember his asking me about children after learning that I had five; he was in a young marriage and "needed some tips." I remember discussing his future plans; he was a promising young man.

Spc. Odums gave my life new focus, new perspectives, and a new appreciation for the little things. Even his death gave new meaning to Memorial Day. On May 31, 2004, and on every subsequent Memorial Day, with a heavy but grateful heart, I cry for my fallen brothers and sisters, and I thank them.

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Correction: An earlier version of this story said Charles Leon Gilliland had written his sister-in-law for bullets. He wrote his mother. The story has been updated.