Friday, May 23, 2008
The Meaning of Sacrifice
On Memorial Day, the President and other leaders give speeches in the amphitheater at Arlington National Cemetery. But to truly appreciate the sacrifices of Americans who have given their lives in battle, I recommend visiting a different part of the cemetery.
In Section 60, a short walk from the visitors’ center, you can visit hundreds of graves of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. As you read the dates on the headstones, you realize that some of these service members were killed as recently as four or five weeks ago. Often, you can see family members – perhaps a young widow or a grieving parent – standing before a grave. It is a humbling and heartbreaking sight.
Yes, the Memorial Day weekend is a time for picnics, baseball games, and family outings. But each of us, in the privacy of our hearts, should find time to remember and appreciate the members of our Armed Forces who made the supreme sacrifice on the field of battle. They did so to preserve our liberty and our American way of life. And they did so selflessly. There is an inscription at Arlington National Cemetery that pretty much says it all: "Not for fame or reward, not lured by ambition or goaded by necessity, but in simple obedience to duty."
This Memorial Day, our nation is still at war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Our entire Iowa family is united in respect for the Iowans – for all Americans – who have fallen in these wars. We also respect the profound loss endured by their families and loved ones.
In each of our nation’s wars, ordinary Americans have stepped forward to show extraordinary qualities of courage and selflessness. We owe a debt to all our war veterans, but we owe an especially profound debt to those who fell in battle. At Gettysburg, President Lincoln described this debt in these immortal words: "It is for us the living . . . 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."
In conflicts going back to the Revolutionary War, many hundreds of thousands of Americans have died defending our independence and freedoms. Let us keep these patriots in our thoughts and prayers this Memorial Day.
