BY: FRANK CAMP, MAY 29, 2017
Memorial Day is seen by some as just another day off work. Many fail to set aside a minute, or even a second of their time, to ponder the scores who have been killed in the line of duty — the men and women this holiday simultaneously mourns and celebrates.
The death of a single soldier is the death of all Americans, for the soldier represents a living wall separating civilization from terror.
Here are 11 quotes to help us remember, mourn, honor, and celebrate the heroes who died while in service of this country:
“It doesn’t take a hero to order men into battle. It takes a hero to be one of those men who goes into battle.” — General Norman Schwarzkopf Jr.
“Without heroes, we are all plain people, and don’t know how far we can go.” — Bernard Malamud
“The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.” — G.K. Chesterton
“For love of country, they accepted death.” — James A. Garfield
“I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.” — Nathan Hale
“They fell, but o’er their glorious grave floats free the banner of the cause they died to save.” — Francis Marion Crawford
“And they who for their country die shall fill an honored grave, for glory lights the soldier’s tomb, and beauty weeps the brave.” — Joseph Rodman Drake
“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
“The brave die never, though they sleep in dust. Their courage nerves a thousand living men.” — Minot J. Savage
“They hover as a cloud of witnesses above this Nation.” — Henry Ward Beecher
“It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.” — Gen. George S. Patton
This Memorial Day, take a moment to still yourself, and reflect on the legacy of America’s lost soldiers.