Perseverance, wrote Victor Hugo, is the secret of all triumphs.

We’re down to the rest of this week and next week for regular classes. In other words, for many of us, graduate and undergraduate alike, we’re down to the academic wire. It’s springtime. The sun is out. We’re tired. We want summer to get here. We don’t want to be in school.

We know it’s hard to stay focused and motivated, but we owe it to ourselves to persevere to the bitter end, right on through next week and into finals.

We also owe it to our peers, and by peers, we mean the college-aged men and women serving in our nation’s armed forces. They volunteered to go into harm’s way and serve so that we could go to school in freedom and safety.

That’s not just a cheesy sentiment. It’s a fact. Many soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen deployed around the world want to be there; that means we don’t have to. Instead, we get to go to school.

Yes, school can be tough, especially if you’re working.

But regardless of your political persuasion, you should support and honor the sacrifice of our veterans. We did so (officially, anyway) on Monday, Memorial Day.

“It is now the moment when by common consent we pause to become conscious of our national life and to rejoice in it, to recall what our country has done for each of us, and to ask ourselves what we can do for our country in return,” said Oliver Wendall Holmes Jr., the famed U.S. Supreme Court justice, in a speech on Memorial Day in 1884. Holmes was a veteran of the Civil War, having served in the Union army after enlisting during his senior year of college.

The best way we as civilian college students can honor our servicemen and women is by giving education our best efforts, despite the effects of sunshine and end-of-the-year fatigue.

So go out there, persevere, work hard and serve your country by getting educated.