Memorial Day 2011

In honor of Memorial Day, here is a well-done, two-minute video produced a few years ago by my friends at the Evergreen Freedom Foundation:

I post this verse from “America the Beautiful” most every Memorial Day, but it remains appropriate:

O beautiful for heroes proved
In liberating strife,
Who more than self their country loved,
And mercy more than life!
America! America!
May God thy gold refine,
Till all success be nobleness,
And every gain divine.

And this year is the 150th anniversary of the U.S. Civil War (check out the great daily blog from The American Interest, “The Long Recall”), so what could be more fitting than a period piece that conveys not only haunting Victorian sentimentalism but also some transcendent feelings about the loss of loved ones to war:

Makes me think of ancestors lost during military service in the Civil War, just a few who represented the hundreds of thousands lost in that terrible conflict:

• Private Jacob Buffington, 3rd Ohio Cavalry
• Private Andrew Preston, 9th Michigan Infantry
• Private Americus Tanner, 151st New York Infantry

Remember today to pay respects to a fallen soldier, sailor, airman or Marine, to pause for just a moment to reflect on the great sacrifice made. Cue “Taps”….