This weekend, Americans all across this nation pause to observe Memorial Day, taking time from their busy lives to pay honor to those brave souls who have gone before us, defending precious freedoms and our way of life.
It is their willingness to take up arms and make unthinkable sacrifices that bears our testimony and reverence today.
Many people will tell you why this day is special. I’d like you to hear it from the people themselves, those brave men and women, who for 240 years have take on the challenge to stand up and fight for our way of life. By sharing some letters from soldiers of different wars, I hope to give you a sense what they went through so you and I can stand here today.
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The Revolutionary War. Most likely a very bitterly cold winter day in Valley Forge, PA.
December 14, 1777
People who live at home in Luxury and Ease, quietly possessing their habitation, Enjoying their Families in peace, have but a very faint idea of the continual Anxiety the man endures who is in a Camp.
What Sweet Felicities have I left at home; A charming Wife -- pretty Children -- Good Beds--good food -- good Cookery -- all agreeable -- all harmonious. Here, all Confusion -- smoke and Cold -- hunger and filthyness -- A pox on my bad luck.
~ Albigence Waldo
--------------------------
During the Civil War, a soldier wrote his friend, Ann:
June 10, 1861, Nashville
Ann,
It makes my heart sick to think of the state of our once happy and yet beloved country . . . to see two brave armies armed with all the deadly instruments that art and wealth could procure and to think that when they meet in the bloody battlefields what destruction and misery they can produce.
What is most horrid of all in this contest is that brother will meet brother and father will meet son in the strife.
No matter what side I might take, might bring me in contact with a cousin or uncle, & god forbid that I should ever be found in arms against either.
Ann, I will be in your town by the 27th, but should I not be prompt do not despair for these are squirrelly times.
Your friend, P. Burns
--------------------------
In the midst of the US involvement in WWI, a young soldier wrote home to his family,
December 14, 1918
My Darling Mother, Dad and all:
The argonne; forty days with the booming of the guns, the nerve racking whine of the projectiles and the crash of the bombs ever in my ears, breathing and eating the damnable gases that have shocked the civilized world. Forty days of struggling, toiling and praying with very little food and sleep.It was forty days of unremitting hell. In fact, the comparison is hardly fair to hell.
It rained continually from the time we got there until the time we left.
The rain was finely woven and clammy as a funeral garment. It had a way of soaking through the skin, on into the body of a man until his very heart seemed to be pumping the rain water along his veins instead of blood. It would wet all the world.
God knows where the sun has gone.
Your devoted son and brother,
Hugh
--------------------------
During WWII, a 19 year-old Army Private shared these thoughts with his brother:
Dear Mitchell:
I don't think any man can exactly explain combat. Take a combination of fear, anger, hunger, thirst, exhaustion, disgust, loneliness, homesickness, and wrap that all up in one reaction and you might approach the feelings a fellow has. It makes you feel mighty small, helpless and alone.
The battle seems like something in a faraway land. The roar is even as bad as the movies have it. The cries of the wounded are pitiful. The dead seem forsaken. Things rage on all around them, but they are still and quiet.
~ Pvt Paul Curtis
--------------------------
War can be a lonely place. During the Korean conflict, a young soldier wrote one last letter home to his girlfriend:
Hill 10-6-2
Dear Babe,
I just received your letter in this morning's mail. I held it in my hand for a minute while a little voice in the back of my head whispered, "This is it. This is the one."
You tried to "let me down easy."
I never said I was the greatest guy on earth; you did. Anyway, he's there. I'm here.
"Be careful," you tell me. "Take care." I almost laughed out loud. We wouldn't want to see me hurt, would we? There's no need to worry about me. I'll be all right.... Do I say something brilliant like "may all your troubles be little ones?"
How about "If you ever need a friend"? That presumes a future.
There are 500,000 N. Koreans and Chinese on the other side of that hill bound and determined to make sure I don't have a future. Over here where your past is your last breath, your present is this breath, and your future is your next breath, you don't make too many promises. Which leaves me what?
Goodbye,
Leon
Two days later, Leon charged an enemy machine gun nest and was killed
--------------------------
In the 1960s, our soldiers were mired in the jungles of Vietnam. A young platoon leader wrote home about his men and mission:
Dearest Wife,
I am out on ambush with eleven men and a medic -- after everything is set up in position I have nothing to do but think about why I am here.
Why do I have to be the one to tell someone to do something that may get him blown away?
Being a good platoon leader is a lonely job. I don't want to really get to know anybody over here because it would be bad enough to lose a man
-- I damn sure don't want to lose a friend. But as hard as I try not to get involved with my men I still can't help liking them, and getting close to a few. They come up and say "hey do you want to see picture of my wife or girl?"
Like I said it gets lonely trying to stay separate.
Maybe sometime I'll try to tell you how scared I am now. There is nothing I can do about it, but wait for another day to start + finish.
All my love always,
~ 1st Lt. Dean Allen
--------------------------
25 years later, our forces deployed to Southwest Asia, and liberated Kuwait during the first Gulf War.
8 March 91
Dear Y'all:
It never seemed like a war. More like a field problem. Even when stuff was burning all around you and firing going off all over the place. It was very real, but more a curiosity than anything else.When we were breaching the main Iraqi defense line, an idiot popped up from a trench and started firing. My tank was the first to return fire. You just don't think of it as someone shooting at you. It's just a target, like on a range.
We passed Kuwait city on the coast road. I can't describe it. I mean the scene on the highway. We all just looked as we drove through the now silent carnage going God damn, God damn. ...
There was a dead Iraqi in a car, eyes wide open, frozen in a silent scream.
I still think of the guy I shot. If I hadn't done it, he could have been in a Prisoner of War camp right now, waiting to go home, just like me.
This only lasted four days. It wasn't even long enough to seem like a war.
~ SSgt. Dan Welch
--------------------------
A decade later, our soldiers were back in Iraq. Pfc. Rachel K. Bosveld, 19, of Oshkosh, Wis wrote home to her mother to assure here she was okay after a convoy truck accident.
Monday, Oct. 20, 2003
I'm doing great this week. Sure, I've dodged lots of bullets and such, gotten little to no sleep and eaten nasty food, but I am doing great.
I got to drive a tank! I got a tour, learned how to operate everything, load everything, and I got to DRIVE IT! I was tooth from ear to ear!
I'm getting a Purple Heart for the accident, along with eight other people in my platoon. . . . Someone is always getting injured here.
There have been no fatalities so far in my company, though, just lots of injuries.
So, how are you? Eighteen days till my birthday! I can't wait! No one probably even knows when it is over here.
Well, bye for now, just wanted to let you know I'm O.K. and I miss you.
I love you,
Rachel
Rachel died six days later in a mortar attack
--------------------------
These are our brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, husbands and uncles, sons and daughters. Each and every one, an American hero. As you and I pause on THIS Memorial Day, let us remember and honor these brave men and women who have answered the call of their country time and time again, traveling to lands far from home, far from friends and family and everything they hold dear… many to fall in battle … all so we may live in freedom.
God bless these United States of America.
It is their willingness to take up arms and make unthinkable sacrifices that bears our testimony and reverence today.
Many people will tell you why this day is special. I’d like you to hear it from the people themselves, those brave men and women, who for 240 years have take on the challenge to stand up and fight for our way of life. By sharing some letters from soldiers of different wars, I hope to give you a sense what they went through so you and I can stand here today.
--------------------------
The Revolutionary War. Most likely a very bitterly cold winter day in Valley Forge, PA.
December 14, 1777People who live at home in Luxury and Ease, quietly possessing their habitation, Enjoying their Families in peace, have but a very faint idea of the continual Anxiety the man endures who is in a Camp.
What Sweet Felicities have I left at home; A charming Wife -- pretty Children -- Good Beds--good food -- good Cookery -- all agreeable -- all harmonious. Here, all Confusion -- smoke and Cold -- hunger and filthyness -- A pox on my bad luck.
~ Albigence Waldo
--------------------------
During the Civil War, a soldier wrote his friend, Ann:
Ann,
It makes my heart sick to think of the state of our once happy and yet beloved country . . . to see two brave armies armed with all the deadly instruments that art and wealth could procure and to think that when they meet in the bloody battlefields what destruction and misery they can produce.
What is most horrid of all in this contest is that brother will meet brother and father will meet son in the strife.
No matter what side I might take, might bring me in contact with a cousin or uncle, & god forbid that I should ever be found in arms against either.
Ann, I will be in your town by the 27th, but should I not be prompt do not despair for these are squirrelly times.
Your friend, P. Burns
--------------------------
In the midst of the US involvement in WWI, a young soldier wrote home to his family,
December 14, 1918My Darling Mother, Dad and all:
The argonne; forty days with the booming of the guns, the nerve racking whine of the projectiles and the crash of the bombs ever in my ears, breathing and eating the damnable gases that have shocked the civilized world. Forty days of struggling, toiling and praying with very little food and sleep.It was forty days of unremitting hell. In fact, the comparison is hardly fair to hell.
It rained continually from the time we got there until the time we left.
The rain was finely woven and clammy as a funeral garment. It had a way of soaking through the skin, on into the body of a man until his very heart seemed to be pumping the rain water along his veins instead of blood. It would wet all the world.
God knows where the sun has gone.
Your devoted son and brother,
Hugh
--------------------------
During WWII, a 19 year-old Army Private shared these thoughts with his brother:Dear Mitchell:
I don't think any man can exactly explain combat. Take a combination of fear, anger, hunger, thirst, exhaustion, disgust, loneliness, homesickness, and wrap that all up in one reaction and you might approach the feelings a fellow has. It makes you feel mighty small, helpless and alone.
The battle seems like something in a faraway land. The roar is even as bad as the movies have it. The cries of the wounded are pitiful. The dead seem forsaken. Things rage on all around them, but they are still and quiet.
~ Pvt Paul Curtis
--------------------------
War can be a lonely place. During the Korean conflict, a young soldier wrote one last letter home to his girlfriend:
Hill 10-6-2 Dear Babe,
I just received your letter in this morning's mail. I held it in my hand for a minute while a little voice in the back of my head whispered, "This is it. This is the one."
You tried to "let me down easy."
I never said I was the greatest guy on earth; you did. Anyway, he's there. I'm here.
"Be careful," you tell me. "Take care." I almost laughed out loud. We wouldn't want to see me hurt, would we? There's no need to worry about me. I'll be all right.... Do I say something brilliant like "may all your troubles be little ones?"
How about "If you ever need a friend"? That presumes a future.
There are 500,000 N. Koreans and Chinese on the other side of that hill bound and determined to make sure I don't have a future. Over here where your past is your last breath, your present is this breath, and your future is your next breath, you don't make too many promises. Which leaves me what?
Goodbye,
Leon
Two days later, Leon charged an enemy machine gun nest and was killed
--------------------------
In the 1960s, our soldiers were mired in the jungles of Vietnam. A young platoon leader wrote home about his men and mission:
Dearest Wife,
I am out on ambush with eleven men and a medic -- after everything is set up in position I have nothing to do but think about why I am here.
Being a good platoon leader is a lonely job. I don't want to really get to know anybody over here because it would be bad enough to lose a man
-- I damn sure don't want to lose a friend. But as hard as I try not to get involved with my men I still can't help liking them, and getting close to a few. They come up and say "hey do you want to see picture of my wife or girl?"
Like I said it gets lonely trying to stay separate.
Maybe sometime I'll try to tell you how scared I am now. There is nothing I can do about it, but wait for another day to start + finish.
All my love always,
~ 1st Lt. Dean Allen
--------------------------
25 years later, our forces deployed to Southwest Asia, and liberated Kuwait during the first Gulf War.
8 March 91Dear Y'all:
It never seemed like a war. More like a field problem. Even when stuff was burning all around you and firing going off all over the place. It was very real, but more a curiosity than anything else.When we were breaching the main Iraqi defense line, an idiot popped up from a trench and started firing. My tank was the first to return fire. You just don't think of it as someone shooting at you. It's just a target, like on a range.
We passed Kuwait city on the coast road. I can't describe it. I mean the scene on the highway. We all just looked as we drove through the now silent carnage going God damn, God damn. ...
There was a dead Iraqi in a car, eyes wide open, frozen in a silent scream.
I still think of the guy I shot. If I hadn't done it, he could have been in a Prisoner of War camp right now, waiting to go home, just like me.
This only lasted four days. It wasn't even long enough to seem like a war.
~ SSgt. Dan Welch
--------------------------
A decade later, our soldiers were back in Iraq. Pfc. Rachel K. Bosveld, 19, of Oshkosh, Wis wrote home to her mother to assure here she was okay after a convoy truck accident.
Monday, Oct. 20, 2003 I'm doing great this week. Sure, I've dodged lots of bullets and such, gotten little to no sleep and eaten nasty food, but I am doing great.
I got to drive a tank! I got a tour, learned how to operate everything, load everything, and I got to DRIVE IT! I was tooth from ear to ear!
I'm getting a Purple Heart for the accident, along with eight other people in my platoon. . . . Someone is always getting injured here.
There have been no fatalities so far in my company, though, just lots of injuries.
So, how are you? Eighteen days till my birthday! I can't wait! No one probably even knows when it is over here.
Well, bye for now, just wanted to let you know I'm O.K. and I miss you.
I love you,
Rachel
Rachel died six days later in a mortar attack
--------------------------
These are our brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, husbands and uncles, sons and daughters. Each and every one, an American hero. As you and I pause on THIS Memorial Day, let us remember and honor these brave men and women who have answered the call of their country time and time again, traveling to lands far from home, far from friends and family and everything they hold dear… many to fall in battle … all so we may live in freedom.
God bless these United States of America.
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