Memorial Day

Today, hundreds and thousands of men and women in uniform and millions of family members sacrifice comfort, treasure and freedoms so that the rest of us can be free. While we enjoy picnics, they are at war.

Really at war; right now, today, this very minute.

And our service members make sacrifices not just for Americans but also for people around the world, most of whom will never appreciate what they have done for them. 

One of the great moments of remembering those who have died was during the Civil War. Lincoln delivered his address at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery at Gettysburg, Pa., in November 1863, while the Civil War was still raging. He was not the main speaker for the day. In fact, the story goes that he was invited as an afterthought. His speech was so short (less than two minutes) that the photographer did not have time to get a picture of him delivering it.

The speech is engraved in the Lincoln Memorial, across the river from Arlington National Cemetery.

Its 278 words do not include "I" or "me," but they do take the audience from our start as a nation and the American Revolution to Lincoln's wishes for the future of our nation.

"Fourscore 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. ... 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."

This Memorial Day, let us give thanks, and increase our devotion, so that our soldiers will not have died in vain.