Happy Memorial Day
Posted by Lexington Green on May 25th, 2008 (All posts by Lexington Green)
“We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.” (Kenneth Branagh, from Henry V.)
On Memorial Day: Respect, admiration and gratitude for America’s warriors, from the beginning, to today, and into the future. God bless America.
May 25th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
Memorial Day Sonnet
If Liberty means anything to me,
I will remember what my freedom cost,
By those who gave their all to keep me free,
Whose lives were sacrificed, but never lost.
I will remind myself of what they did,
And keep them dearly cherished in my heart;
Their honor never from me shall be hid
And I will know they always did their part
To save our nation and its people here,
To pledge their lives in defense of our ways,
To show that freedom always outlives fear,
And sacrifice is hallowed all our days.
If Liberty means anything to me,
I will remember those who kept me free.
© John Stuart 2008
Pastor at Erin Presbyterian Church,
Knoxville, Tennessee
http://media.libsyn.com/media/stushie/Memorial_Day.mp3
May 26th, 2008 at 7:26 am
From another ‘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.” - A. Lincoln.
May 26th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
Errm, why Kenneth Branagh, why not the infinitely superior Olivier version?
July 16th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
I looked at both on YouTube. Branagh’s is way better.