Three score and fourteen years ago…

Three score and fourteen years ago, well over a thousand American boys sacrificed their flesh and blood on a foreign battlefield on a distant beach.  They were both natural born citizens and immigrants.  They died alongside Brits, French, Canadians, and countless others.  Their successful yet bloody and sacrificial day led to the overthrow of a dictatorial regime that required its people to stand each day to salute and swear allegiance to a single man.  Those American boys died for their brothers whom they fought beside.  They died for their families and their homes so far away.  Yes, they died for a flag.  But, they also died for the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands one nation inspired by God indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

In their memory and in honor of all those have served or currently serve our nation of nations in the armed forces, may we fulfill our most trusted and vital task far beyond standing for that flag, a pledge, and a song.  That “we the People of these United States in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice (fairness), insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”

May we also “hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”  (T. Jefferson—Declaration of Independence)

May we treat one another not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.  (MLK—I Have a Dream)

And, may we expect and require our fellow Americans to treat one another with as much respect and fairness as rightfully insisted for Old Glory.

As Abraham Lincoln said, “It is rather for us the living 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 here 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.”