Memorial Day -2017

It may have started ‘Four score and seven years ago….’ but Abraham Lincoln continued ‘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’. This of course is part of the Gettysburg Address written by Lincoln in 1864.

Although we were required to recite the Gettysburg Address in elementary school, I have to admit the sentences abover were the hardest for me to remember.  As I read them today, the relevance is still true; while Memorial Day is a holiday, is is not a ‘happy’ day. It is one that should be spent remembering those who made the ultimate sacrifice and are no longer living. A time to say ‘thank you’ to the families that suffered a great loss. 

Photo: http://www.nationalguard.mil/News/Article-View/Article/575665/arlington-national-cemetery-150-years-old-today-linked-to-national-guard-soldie/