This sort of good deed is so important:

Christopher and Terri Potts bought a fixer-upper house, pledging to tackle upgrades a little at a time as their toddler son, Jackson, grew up.
But the new father never got a chance to finish what he started. In the spring of 2004, less than a year after the family moved into their tiny ranch house on East Beardsworth Road, Christopher was shipped out to Iraq with his Rhode Island National Guard unit.
And there he died, that October, on his 38th birthday. …
The organization, a part of the Rhode Island Builders Association, helps create better homes for wounded veterans or families of those killed in combat since Sept. 11, 2001. When its members heard about Potts’ death, in a gun battle while serving with the Guard’s Alpha Battery, 1st Battalion, 103rd Field Artillery Division, they knew they had their first project.
Four years after his death, Christopher Potts’ home is mended, in more ways than one.

Nothing can recompense the heroic sacrifice, but such expressions of appreciation can at least go so far as to honor it.