US Memorial Day – the Cost of our Freedoms

A short essay in remembrance of Memorial Day weekend and why.

Every year in the United States we set aside the last weekend of the month of May as a memorial. To those who have not been directly touched by military sacrifice, it is a weekend of celebrations, cook outs, races, and days at lakes or beaches somewhere. To others, the weekend signifies the end of the school year and Summer commencing. But to those who have been touched by the sacrifice of so many, the weekend is a remembrance of a person or persons who gave of themselves beyond the measure of most, beyond what is normally expected. They gave their utmost for their family, for their friends, for their fellows in arms, for nations and peoples who may not have known their names, and for a nation whose flag they saluted and was honored to serve.

The cost of our freedoms has been borne in the blood, sweat, and tears of those who raised their hand in solemn promise to protect and defend their people, their nation, and their Constitution " that edict of principles and statements which became laws by which a free nation governs itself.

Out of each generation some have heeded the call in defense of righteous liberty. Out of each generation the specter of tyranny has been met by those willing to trade themselves so that others might live free.

No one knows that price greater than the mother who carried her child to term, suckled it, fed, coddled, and clothed it. Held on to each moment as the child grew into a young man or woman. Wept the bitterest of tears as the child in uniform walked away as a soldier, sailor, or marine. No one knows that cost greatest as the mother who receives the news that her child will not return to her as he or she left.

In a letter to Mrs Bixby, a President conveys his sense of loss and respect to a mother who must surely grieve.

Dear Madam,

I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant-General of Massachusetts, that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle.

I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save.

I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours, to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of Freedom. Yours, very sincerely and respectfully,

Abraham Lincoln

…

The cost of freedom has ever laid in the price of those willing to sacrifice their lives that others might live and live in freedom. Many are the tales of good men and women rising to the occasion of the moment, against harrowing odds, and selflessly dispatching the enemy positions to provide reprieve or succor to their comrades in arms.

The cost of freedom is paid in sacrifice. The cost of freedom is paid by those willing to do what others are not. At times the price is too high. At times the price is too easily forgotten.

Mr Lincoln attempts to reconcile a nation in a short speech given after a horrific battle in Gettysburg Pennsylvania.

“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 battlefield 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.”

Let us therefore remember with respect those who paid the cost of our freedoms with their utmost devotions to duty, with their service to their nation, and with their love for their family and friends.

This is not just a weekend of holidays, celebrations, races, cook outs, and time at beaches. This is a weekend whereby we are in remembrance of those who served our great nation fully, at the cost of their lives, their liberty, their freedom, that we might enjoy those freedoms so costly won.

Please remember, memorialize, those who have gone before you in service and in sacrifice. Enjoy the food and the fun, the races and the beaches, enjoy all those events and remember those who gave you that freedom to do so.

Author's Note

Remember with me.

Reviews

[Eileenws]

Doc. Excellent work. You should go to a wreath laying ceremony and read this. Eileen