Memorial Day

As I live my life here in the United States, I often think of all the fallen soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice that permits us to enjoy the many benefits of freedom.

Memorial Day has changed since its inception. We now enjoy, as we should, time with family and friends at picnics, sporting events, etc.

But let’s not forget the origin of this holiday. Please take a moment to thank with prayer or in your heart the heroic deeds of those who fought and died, in all theatres, for righteousness and freedom.

I can’t even begin to imagine what it would be like to experience life slipping away in a cold, wet, muddy trench in a strange land far, far from home – the worst part, not even being able to say goodbye to one’s mother, father, sisters, brothers.

The Gettysburg Address presented by Abraham Lincoln dedicating the cemetary in 1863.


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 battle-field 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 can not 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 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 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.

I posted this in another Sandbox Memorial Day thread. I suspect it will fit in here, as well!