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| Worth Sharing... |
June 02, 2004 |
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Dear Friends,
Henry Hyde is one of a handful of World War II veterans serving in the House. He made the following remarks at the House Memorial Day ceremony. I thought what he said was worth sharing.
Commemoration of WWII Veterans
Congressman Henry Hyde
U.S. Capitol
May 20, 2004
Congressman Hyde, left, and former Sen. Bob Dole, talk about their experiences in World War II near the Pacific portion of the newly dedicated World War II Memorial on the Mall in Washington D.C.
Mr. Speaker, fellow members of the Congress, fellow citizens: We meet today to honor the memory, the sacrifice and the accomplishments of millions of Americans who answered the call of duty at a pivotal moment in human history. By doing so, they had the rare privilege of shaping history in a more humane direction.
Who were these men and women? They were students and factory workers; farmers and salesmen; nurses and athletes; engineers and teachers. As individuals, they were innocent of the responsibility for the fact that the world of the early 1940s stood on a razor`s edge, with the stark possibility of a future of unbridled tyranny beckoning on one side of the great divide between the free and the enslaved.
But these young Americans accepted the responsibility that history thrust upon them. They left their schools, jobs and loved ones behind, and they put on their country`s uniform and got about the hard, urgent task of defeating the tyrants.
By doing so, they gave the world a chance at a new birth of freedom.
Sherman Bradshaw a World War II Veteran, and Albuquerque resident, was presented with the Bronze Star, Good Conduct, and 6 other medals during the Memorial Day Celebration held in Albuquerque on Memorial Day, 2004.
In their country`s service, they changed. And because they changed, America changed. In shared foxholes or facing a rain of kamikazes aboard ship, assaulting beaches at Normandy or Iwo Jima; confronting the murderous flak over Wilhemshaven or the yellow-nosed fighters of the Luftwaffe, there were no divisions of race, ethnicity or religion; there were only Americans, comrades-in-arms whom we had never known before, on whose dedication to duty our lives depended. The bonds of civic friendship formed during the war, endured after the war --- and they changed America.
It made little sense to defend the world against Hitler`s lunatic racial theories and then accept in America legally divided into two societies; and so, within a generation of World War II, segregation was dismantled. Having twice rescued Europe from disaster in the 20th Century, my generation quickly concluded that isolationism was no longer an option; and it is our generation that laid the political groundwork for America`s leadership in the world over the past 60 years.
Our lives were irrevocably changed by our experiences during the Second World War. Therefore, as we remember, with affection and awe and gratitude, those in whom the bright promise of youth was cut short by the ultimate sacrifice, we remember that freedom has a high price.
We owe an unpayable debt to those heroes of freedom whose gift of self, embodied in the performance of their duty, now rest in the cemeteries of Normandy and throughout the islands of the Pacific. We commend their eternal souls to the mercy of God, in whose kingdom every tear will be wiped away.
An American Legion Honor Guard honored those who have fallen in the service of our country during the 2004 Memorial Day Celebration held at Veterans Memorial Park in Albuquerque.
But if we cannot repay the debt we owe our beloved dead, we may at least discharge some portion of it by being better citizens and neighbors ourselves. We may honor their sacrifice by building the kind of America they fought and died for; a land of liberty and justice for all; a decent and tolerant society; a community of civic friendship; a leader in freedom`s cause throughout the world.
Every generation of Americans from Bunker Hill to Baghdad has answered in a resounding "Yes!" to Lincoln`s haunting question at Gettysburg - whether a nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal can long endure.
A young boy reflects in the Fallen Friends area of Albuquerque`s Veterans Memorial Park. The Fallen Friends area is one of seven depictions in the park of different phases in a veteran`s life.
May those of us, their former comrades ... alive today, rededicate ourselves to freedom`s cause as we once gave ourselves and our youth to freedom`s defense. And as we commemorate their sacrifice, let us not mourn their death, but rather thank God that such men lived.
Thank you. |
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