Memorial Day

"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."

—Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address delivered in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania 

November 19, 1863

Ever since the dawn of civilization, citizens and their leaders have paid homage to the fallen who were sent to defend their lands and lives. From Pericles' "Funereal Oration" given to the citizens of Athens (as told to us by the ancient historian, Thucydides), to William Shakespeare in his Henry V trilogy of plays, and to Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg (who, I believe, was so influenced by Pericles' oration). As with our intellectual and cultural forefathers like the ancient Greeks, then England, and more recently the generations of Washington and Lincoln, it is now up to us to carry on these traditions and pass them on to future generations. And even though the quiet rest of those who have gone before cannot steady the unrest of those of us that follow, we must always remember.

 

So, like Pericles, Shakespeare, and Lincoln, may we never forget the fallen who gave so much...and in the end, gave the ultimate sacrifice. And if there is that "Undiscovered Country" that Hamlet so eloquently tried to envision, I trust the fallen are able to gather together in that place and remember the unforgettable lines of Henry V, as he tells his "Band of Brothers"...

"...This story shall the good man teach his son;

And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,

From this day to the ending of the world,

But we in it shall be rememberèd—

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;

For he to-day that sheds his blood with me

Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,

This day shall gentle his condition;

And gentlemen in England now a-bed

Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,

And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks

That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day."

—Henry V, Act IV Scene iii

Have a safe and wonderful Memorial Day, everyone...and remember.