Memorial Day 2025

A few thoughts

Memorial Day commemorates the hundreds of thousands who gave their lives in service to this country. The overwhelming majority did it with honor, even in the face of pervasive fear. Some may have had doubts about what they were asked to do but they had sworn to serve by taking an oath to the Constitution, that amazing set of ideals rather than any single individual, as the generations before and after them.

I hope you can spare a moment to consider their sacrifices today. The most appropriate words our nation has, in my book, were scribbled by an Illinois president in November 1863 as he dedicated a federal cemetary— the country actually has far more of those grassy areas populated with white headstones across this nation than most people realize—in south central Pennsylvania. While his words were about recent events on that bloody ground, the sentiment of sacrifice and commitment he recalled is more universal than that place alone; it’s also reminding of us something bigger than any individual among us.

“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.”—Abraham Lincoln, 19 November 1863

Flags are ubiquitous in this country, predominantly the Stars and Stripes. My wish for today is that all remember that flag, like the sacrifices we memorialize today, symbolizes a commitment to that same ideal enunciated in the Constitution and spelled out by Lincoln above. We too have unfinished work for which so many have given so much.

Thank you for reading Actions Create Consequences today. I welcome your thoughts, objections, reflections, memories, or any feedback.

Be well and be safe. Also give thanks. FIN

Abraham Lincoln, “The Gettsyburg Address”, constitutioncenter.org, 1863, retrieved at https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/historic-document-library/detail/abraham-lincoln-the-gettysburg-address-1863?gad_source=1