Thank you to all who have served and continue to serve. The photo above was taken on June 1, 1991. My commissioning ceremony at West Point, New York on the day I graduated. My older brother, who graduated from the Air Force Academy two years before me and recently retired as a Brigadier General, swore me into the service. I could not be more grateful to have the opportunity to serve in the company of heroes. Great men and woman who I remain in awe of today for their commitment to this country. This great American experiment. Our system of government is not perfect, but we remain the beacon of hope for so many.
I took time away this Veteran’s Day to visit the Golden Gate National Cemetery, where the remains of almost 150,000 souls are laid to rest. Among them, sixteen Medal of Honor recipients.
For those of you who have ever witnessed a military burial, you may recall the image of the flag, once draped on the casket, now removed and folded, presented to the grieving spouse. A brief exchange of words takes place: “On behalf of a grateful Nation.”
Perhaps the most eloquent of memorial addresses took place on November 19, 1863; on what was once a Pennsylvania farm, now the final resting place for more than 3,500 Americans.
Presently, with our great nation again passing through tumultuous times, it is perhaps appropriate that we remind ourselves of how much we have endured, and sacrificed, and how far we still have to go. If you have read this far, please take a moment to reread the short eulogy of another former Army Captain and small-town lawyer.
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
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