Today is Veteran’s Day. Today, remember to stop and say “thanks” to anyone you know who is a veteran.
I have had this email in my head since our pastor did a sermon series on Abraham Lincoln this summer.
In the bulletin on one of the Sunday’s he posted the Gettysburg Address (which I have posted below as well).
I remember being required to memorize it at some point during grade school and have ever since purposefully put it out of my mind. Until that Sunday.
A couple of points really struck me when I read it.
The address is really a salute to the veterans (and especially those killed in the war). We should be truly thankful that others in our society put their lives on the line for us everyday.
The second point that REALLY struck me was that it was also a call to action. It is our responsibility as a society to take the sacrifices that the veteran’s have made on our behalf and make something of it. Courageous men and women have fought and died for you to have the opportunity to reach your potential. The least you can do is make the most of it.
That might feel like a little bit of a guilt trip, but if you really think about it you won’t feel guilty, you will feel inspired to do better. You will be inspired to take things to the next level.
Let’s take the sacrifice made for us and turn it into something positive. Let’s take our freedoms and use them to make a shining example of ourselves and our country. Let’s create something that they would be proud of. Let’s give them something worth fighting for.
Here is the address in full:
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 battlefield 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 cannot dedicate—we cannot consecrate—we cannot 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.
Remember to thank a veteran today.
– Jake
