Post Memorial Day Tribute

[c6vetteinhouston]

As I reflected on yesterday and all it meant, I felt compelled to post this today. We shall never forget the true meaning of what Memorial Day means.

The American Revolution; 1775 to 1782
The War of 1812; The Second War of Independence; 1812 to 1815
Mexican-American War; 1846 to 1848
The Civil War; 1861–1865
The Spanish-American War; April 25 – August 12, 1898
World War I; 1914–1918
World War II; 1941 to 1945
The Korean War; 1950 – armistice signed 27 July 1953, cease fires in place
Vietnam War; 1955 to 1975
Desert Storm; 1990 to 1991
Operation Enduring Freedom; 2001, known as the War on Terrorism, current
Iraqi Freedom; 2003 to current

Given the past of all the men and women who have perished to establish this great nation, spanning over the time frame from the beginning of our country to the current war on terrorism, and to the war on the current administration policies, this address is as relevant today as it was then:

The Gettysburg Address
US President Abraham Lincoln
November 19, 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 cannot dedicate, we cannot 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 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.

Wayne Sings, MSgt, USAF
Retired

[Yerf Dog]