Their last full measure of devotion

1969-1973:  

I spent these years as a university student.  I managed to evade military service. However, in my g-g-generation, there were many who did not evade. They were called to Vietnam and fought in the terrible war there. Today I honor and appreciate those who served in Vietnam while I did not. Thank you.

So many of those soldiers did not make it home alive. Their names are written in the history of heroic acts, and carved upon a hallowed black granite wall in Washington.  Thank you, families and friends of those whose sacrifice expressed their "last full measure of devotion" to the cause of freedom that we Americans espouse. They fought and died while I studied, partied, and tried...to figure out what this life is all about.

While I eventually figured out what it's all about, many of them never got the chance. 

And this is what I later discovered: Jesus Christ conquered death. He, like they, died for me.  But he rose from the dead.  I pray that I, and they, will  rise with him.

Maybe you don't believe that.  It is your right--a right insured by the blood of those who took the fall of death for us.

Near the dark monument into which those heroic names are chiseled, there is another monumental wall, upon which is chiseled these words: 

"...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."

Thus by writing those words of President Lincoln (who was himself slain in the cause of freedom), and also these words of mine that you now see on this screen, freely... I write them freely...I do cherish all those brave men and women whose blood has lubricated the progress of liberty across our great history. They have paid the dearest price of all so that I, and you, can write freely, speak freely, worship freely, believe freely, and act freely within the bounds of nature's law.  

In this same spirit of gratitude do I honor all men and women who now serve and represent us in service to the cause of freedom.  Thank you for putting yourself in harm's way for us.  May the Lord of Hosts bless you.

Special thanks to the men and women of my parents' generation who beat the hell out of the Nazis, and scared their Feuhrer to death. May it never happen again.

 

Carey Rowland, author of Glass half-Full