“‘Let no ravages of time testify to the present or the coming generations that we, as a people, have forgotten the cost of a free and undivided republic.’
“With that solemn promise, Army General John Logan signed the order in 1868 that established Memorial Day. We have honored his promise faithfully ever since, and this year -- with our nation still at war and a new generation of heroes fighting and dying for freedom -- we will do it again.
“The ‘cost’ of which Logan wrote is, of course, the blood spilt of those who paid the ultimate sacrifice for their country. It is the hardest currency of all, once spent never to be recouped, a debt we can never truly, fully repay.
“And yet, Memorial Day provides us the opportunity at the very least to acknowledge that debt, to recognize this incredible sacrifice and to recommit ourselves to making sure it wasn’t spent in vain.
“Upon the graves of our war dead -- be they from Lexington and Concord; Gettysburg and Antietam; the Argonne Forest or the beaches of Normandy; Chosin and Inchon; Saigon and the Mekong Delta; Baghdad or Kandahar -- rests not only the memories and the pride of valor past, but the hope and the vision of a better, more peaceful future.
“Please join me this Memorial Day in remembering, on behalf of present and coming generations, the deep and abiding debt we owe to our fallen and to their loved ones.”
It is all too easy to say these men and women died for nothing and that we should not have sent them abroad. If we did not fight, we would have peace and they would live.
It is true that they would live--for a while. Until a worse fight arose because we failed to defeat evil. Or perhaps someone else, or many others, would die instead of them.
As for the peace argument. It is true that failing to fight brings peace. Iraqis knew a sort of peace as long as they did not resist Saddam's butchers who slaughtered them into submission. During that time of submission, accepting the deaths or torture of some relatively small number taken in the night quietly let the rest of the surviving Iraqis pretend to go about their normal lives. But their lives were not normal. And the peace was the silence of subjugation, subject to the murderous whims of a dictator and his evil minions. Dying for a better peace is a far better deal in the long run. And many Iraqis fight with our forces to achieve a better peace.
So yes, our men and women die today in Iraq and Afghanistan. They die for a better peace than we could possible get by turning our backs on evil and hoping that evil people will tire of inflicting evil before they get to us in our homes.
I remember them all. May the current generation adding to the toll be a part of our history of fighting for a better peace.
