Secure the Blessings of Liberty

“They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning.

We will remember them.”

“For the Fallen” by Laurence Binyon

70 YEARS AGO TODAY AN EVIL BEAST WITH A SILVER TONGUE …

… started the deadliest conflict in human history.  A charismatic, hypnotically mesmerizing megalomaniac.  An evil human beast whose oratory powers seduced the masses until they gave up their liberties – then their lives, their souls – to this Anti-Christ wannabe.

KILLED  100 MILLION SOULS

When it was all over approximately;

• 22,000,000 to 25,000,000 (million) military personnel were killed
• 60,000,000 to 80,000,000 (million) innocent civilians were dead (I know I could have shortened those numbers with abbreviations — but it wouldn’t be respectful)
• 5,700,000 Jews, (78% of the Jewish population in Europe at that time) were murdered.

Six years of raging war, blood, guts and inhumanities piled high in death and destruction.

THE AMERICAN SACRIFICE

Approximately 418,000 Americans lost their lives. But they are not gone. Not forgotten. They laid down their lives …

AT THE ALTAR OF LIBERTY

How costly a sacrifice war brings. Sometimes it’s unavoidable. 70 years ago today it was. But it …

IS THE RIGHT THING TO DO

For liberty. For justice. For human dignity. Securing the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity is, and will always be, perilous and fraught with danger. But ultimately, fate has shown it to be purposeful. Meaningful. Essential to our survival.

The right thing to do.

IT’S SIMPLE

“Secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity.” The meaning of that statement has never been summed up better than this short, heartfelt letter, to a grieving mother from a plain-spoken man. A self-educated and deeply moral man.  One who shortly thereafter would pay the ultimate sacrifice himself.

Dear Madam Bixby,

I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle.

I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save.

I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.

Yours, very sincerely and respectfully,

A. Lincoln — Washington, Nov. 21, 1864.

So Costly a Sacrifice

A step ahead. A step behind. A look left, instead of right. Right, instead of left.

Up instead of down. Down instead of up.

A blink of the eye at the wrong time.

And … it’s over.

BUT WHAT IS LIFE ANYWAY – REALLY?

“It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime.

It is the little shadow that runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.”

– Crowfoot, Native American Blackfoot warrior and orator

A FIREFLY IN THE NIGHT

The fleeting flash of a firefly in the night … then gone.

But not – not for them. Ever.

THEIR UNDIMINISHABLE ETHEREAL ESSENCE …

… echoes eternally throughout the music of the spheres like heavenly bagpipes playing Amazing Grace … across the unfathomable unknowable on their way to Their Last Post.

LIGHTS THE SHADOWS

Their shadows run across the grass riding a Sonata of Moonlight on an Ode to Joy – to living, giving and life. Outshining, outshining, the sun from deep within the eternal embrace of the arms of

Angels

HONOR

To honor the fallen, with their lifeblood splattered on the altar of liberty — a respectful duty remains.

VIGILANCE

To be forever vigilant against another charismatic, hypnotically mesmerizing megalomaniac,  silver-tongued evil human beast – that could, with our current technology and weaponry, make 100 million souls look like a piddling pittance. A trifling travesty.

REQUIRED

Of you. Look. Think. Question. Speak up.

FIGHT

Fight to secure the blessings of liberty – for ourselves and our posterity.