My maternal great-grandmother, born six months after the Civil War ended, died when I was a child. I do, however, remember that in her very old age she instructed me on more than one occasion: "Anything worth doing is worth doing right." No doubt those words were drilled into Ida Bell Thomson by my Scottish great-great-grandfather who, among other things in his long life, witnessed (and perhaps even participated in) the burning of Atlanta in 1864 as a captain in the 79th Ohio Volunteers Infantry regiment.

So what does an oft-repeated adage from a woman born in the mid-19th century have to do with the fiduciary investment issues of the early 21st century? Just this: While we can all agree that providing investment advisory services to our clients is worth doing, we should make sure that we care about doing it right. Doing it right in our world, I believe, means living up to the high standards required of a fiduciary.

Doing it right seems particularly appropriate now that another Memorial Day has just passed, the great commemoration of D-Day is now concluded, and the 4th of July has come and gone. These historic milestones, along with the continuing death toll of our soldiers and Marines in Iraq, cannot help but bring a deepened sense of appreciation for the supreme sacrifice made by so many over the long course of our beloved nation's history.

All these events are a reminder that each of us has a solemn obligation to those who came before us and gave so much. That obligation, stated so eloquently by President Reagan in his speech at the 40th anniversary of the D-Day landings, is to show "by our actions that we understand what they died for."

Letters home written by those who have served in our country's military from the Revolutionary War to Iraq often tell us that soldiers are able to endure the terrors of combat only because they do not want to let down their comrades. Those same letters, though, always speak of a great feeling for our country and the ideals for which it stands. In his powerful D-Day speech, President Reagan identified those ideals as "faith, belief, loyalty, and love."

Those of us in the investment advisory profession have a special duty to be good stewards of other people's wealth. In these times when we are asking men and women in uniform all over the globe to lay down their lives to defend America and to help build a better world, is it too much to ask that each of us do our utmost to help create an America imbued with the ideals for which so many of our countrymen shed their blood through the ages?

One way to help build a better America in the world of investing is to adopt a fiduciary business model. Any efforts that we can make in achieving this goal, of course, seem wholly inadequate compared with the sacrifices made by those who died believing in the great ideals for which America stands. Nonetheless, we can honor them in our own small way by strengthening the investment advisory industry through adoption of a fiduciary way of thinking. Indeed, the scandals over the past few years that are emblematic of the widespread corruption in many parts of our financial system would never have occurred had the lodestar of a fiduciary standard been set in place and followed scrupulously.

All fiduciaries involved in different fields of investing--including ERISA fiduciaries, fiduciaries of public employee retirement plans, fiduciaries of foundations and endowments, or fiduciaries of private family trusts--have one thing in common. They are required to live up to the standard of trust law because the assets they are responsible for are held in trust. The standard of trust law is the highest known in law.

The summary of a model law--the Uniform Management of Public Employee Retirement Systems Act--describes the special responsibilities of fiduciaries that hold assets in trust: "By declaring that all retirement system assets are held in trust.public employees are guaranteed the highest standard of conduct in the management and investment of assets for retirement that the law can establish. A trustee.carries the greatest burdens of care, loyalty and utmost good faith for the beneficiaries to whom he or she is responsible."

It is no accident, I believe, that some of these solemn obligations owed by a fiduciary are the same as the ideals identified by President Reagan in his D-Day speech and for which so many of America's best gave their lives. Carrying out these fiduciary obligations--"the greatest burdens of care, loyalty and utmost good faith"--may help us to better "understand what they died for:" the ideals of "faith, belief, loyalty, and love." And so: "Strengthened by their courage, heartened by their [valor], and borne by their memory, let us continue to stand for the ideals for which they lived and died."