I think the average America would add "while protecting our nation" when thinking of the meaning of this holiday, so they believe our Memorial Day was, in a sense, "caused" by foreign forces trying to destroy America.
However, if you look back at the history of all U.S. military operations where U.S. soldiers died from, I'd argue most of these operations were unnecessary, illegal, and spawned from false-flag events. (Shouldn't be surprising since the U.S. has been the most imperialist country in the world for quite a while now.)
So the sad reality is most of our fallen soldiers that we are commemorating today died not as a result from protecting the USA from foreign forces, but died because of our own corrupt politician's personal and economic agendas.