Monday, May 28, 2012

For Those Who Died to Keep Us Free

It is Memorial Day. A day filled with family, friends, grilling, and more sales than any one person could possibly cover.

OR

It is a day to remember and thank those who have served to keep us safe and free.

I choose the later.

I choose to say thank you to my father for his service.
DSA USArmy promotion to Major 1969

I choose to say thank you to Cousin Clint, Air Force Pilot extraordinaire. Super proud of you Bud.

I choose to say thank you to Karl, also serving in the Air Force.

I choose to say thank you to those men and women whom I meet in my travels who are actively serving in our military. They are always surprised when some crazy haired woman walks up to them in the airport, or the store, or the rest stop, sticks out her hand and says, “Thank you for your service.”

And I pray for them.

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Every time I sit down at my computer I am reminded. I am reminded to pray for Alex, a student of HHBL’s who is currently serving in Afghanistan.

I am reminded to pray for Doug, severely wounded last year, who is valiantly fighting his way back.

And I am reminded to pray for Matt, the son of my college roomie. Matt is again in Afghanistan and I am again waking up at 2a.

And as I have done for the past 10 years or so, I will find a quiet place in my house and I will read aloud to myself the words of The Gettysburg Address. And I will cry.

So that you don’t have to look the words up I have printed them below. Take the time to read them. Read them slowly and carefully. And remember all those men and women who have served so valiantly, who continue to serve with quiet courage, to keep us safe and free.

The Gettysburg Address

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 here 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 can not 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 dedicated to the great task remaining before us - that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion - that we here highly resolve that these 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.

1 comment:

  1. Thank you - it was an honor to serve my country. God Bless America.

    ReplyDelete

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