Our war continues through another Memorial Day.
This is the fifth we've observed since September 11, 2001. I am grateful that the toll of this war does not add large numbers of new names to the long list of those who we are obliged by tradition and honor to thank for our freedoms. Yet the toll is no less horrible for those whose friends and family members returned home with a solitary military escort to be buried in their home town, far from where they died. And sadly, in a few cases there is not even this small comfort, with not even the body recovered.
Do not forget those who fell at Lexington Green, before the walls of Quebec, at Yorktown, at Bladensburg and New Orleans, at Vera Cruz and the Halls of Montezuma, on the frontier West and at Bull Run.
Remember those who died at Shiloh and Vicksburg, and the many who perished in numbers never seen before in the Wilderness.
Be thankful for those who died at Santiago and in Peking, and in the trenches at Chateau-Theirry, St. Mihiel, and Belleau Wood, and in Murmansk.
Remember our fathers who fought and died in Bataan and New Georgia, in The Slot and in the air over Germany, at Kasserine and Salerno, at Okinawa and Normandy, at Iwo Jima and Bastogne, and at Inchon and Chosin.
Remember our brothers who sacrificed at Hue and Khe Sahn, in the Parrot's Beak and the Ia Drang Valley.
And mark our dead from Kuwait and Tora Bora, and at Nassariya, Fallujah, Ramadi, Mosul, and Baghdad. We can't fully remember their sacrifice until we know whether we will have victory or defeat.
If it was solely based on their skill, dedication, and sacrifice, I'd have no worries about how to remember them. But alas, though our soldiers, Marines, airmen, and sailors are the ones who die and are dying in battle, the crucial front is here amongst those of us who are asked only to let them win.
[With thanks to Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae of the Canadian Army.]
We will remember many more next year who today are alive and fighting to defend us. And in future years we will remember some who have yet to enlist--and some even who are yet to be born. This is a Long War.
But all who we will remember will have fought for us and died protecting us. As so many have already. Because there are sick fanatics out there who dream only of killing us, we need men and women who believe their duty is to stand guard over us and sacrifice their lives if necessary.
Those fanatics remember 9/11 as a day of victory. A day when they took four of our airliners on sleepy morning flights, crashed them into our buildings, and killed thousands of our people.
Memorial Day 2007 won't be our last Memorial Day at war. Regardless of how you remember those who have died in Afghanistan and Iraq today, our enemies will keep coming. You can believe the killing will stop if we just come home with the job undone. But that is a fantasy. Our enemies hated us before they claimed Afghanistan and Iraq as reason to kill us.
We must fight the jihadis and the states that find them useful until we destroy them and strangle the sick faith that drives them forward in their death orgy.
I remember all who have died to defend us here at home. From Lexington Green to God knows where our troops will fight for us next.
Hold their torch high. That's all they really ask of us.
