Memorial Day 2016

Today, we remember Americans who are not here to thank.

In searching for words that expressed the spirit of Memorial Day, I found them in a passage from Ronald Reagan's First Inaugural Address.

"Directly in front of me, the monument to a monumental man, George Washington, father of our country. A man of humility who came to greatness reluctantly. He led America out of revolutionary victory into infant nationhood. Of to one side, the stately memorial Thomas Jefferson. The Declaration of Independence flames with his eloquence. And then, beyond the Reflecting Pool, the dignified columns of the Lincoln Memorial. Whoever would understand in his heart the meaning of America will find it in the life of Abraham Lincoln.

Beyond these monuments to heroism is the Potomac River, and on the far shore the sloping hills of Arlington Cemetery, with its row upon row of simple white markers bearing crosses or Stars of David.

They add up to only a tiny fraction of the price that has been paid for our freedom. Each of these markers is a monument to the kind of hero I spoke of earlier. Their lives ended in places called Belleau Wood, The Argonne, Omaha Beach, Salerno, and halfway around the world on Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Pork Chop Hill, the Chosin Resivior, and in a hundred rice paddies and jungles in of a place called Vietnam.

Under one such marker lies a young man, Martin Treptow, who left his job in a small town barbershop in 1917 to go to France with the famed Rainbow Division. There on the western front, he was killed trying to carry a message between battalions under heavy artillery fire.


We're told that on his body was found a diary. On the flyleaf under the heading "My Pledge" he had written these words: 'America must win this war. Therefore I will work, I will save, I will sacrifice, I will endure, I will fight cheerfully, and do my utmost, as if the issue of the whole struggle depended on me alone'."

We remember that spirit today.