My husband and I spent the weekend working on our home improvement list. This requires us to find our favorite rock station on the radio and crank the volume up…way up. This drowns out our hearty attempts of “singing along”. The station we were listening to had a commercial reminding us of the true reason for having a Memorial Day which is of course to honor those who have fought for our country.
I have cousins that fought in Vietnam, a father- in- law and an ex father –in- law who both accomplished heroic feats (which they never talked about) in the Korean war, friends who served in Desert Storm, one son who is on his second tour of duty and another soon to go on his third. So this is a subject and a day that is close to my heart.
In my search for something that best matched my sentiments I have read many speeches and stories. I read with many tears and have loved them all but I was surprised to find that one short speech that I had memorized and recited back in grade school stills says it best. It is the Gettysburg Address by President Lincoln. And because nothing I could write would be better… here it is:
“Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we can not consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave their full measure of devotion, that we here highly resolve that those dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
To which I add only amen. That’s the view from my side of the street, what’s yours?
I have cousins that fought in Vietnam, a father- in- law and an ex father –in- law who both accomplished heroic feats (which they never talked about) in the Korean war, friends who served in Desert Storm, one son who is on his second tour of duty and another soon to go on his third. So this is a subject and a day that is close to my heart.
In my search for something that best matched my sentiments I have read many speeches and stories. I read with many tears and have loved them all but I was surprised to find that one short speech that I had memorized and recited back in grade school stills says it best. It is the Gettysburg Address by President Lincoln. And because nothing I could write would be better… here it is:
“Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we can not consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave their full measure of devotion, that we here highly resolve that those dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
To which I add only amen. That’s the view from my side of the street, what’s yours?
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