the life of major general john b. anderson

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I have the privilege to give the Memorial Day address at Oak Lawn Cemetery in Parkersburg, Iowa. Here's the address:

Unlike the Fourth of July that celebrates the birth of the nation or Veteran's Day in November that celebrates the lives of all who wore the uniform, Memorial Day is specifically dedicated to remembering those who died in uniform.

During the Civil War, more than 600,000 Union and Confederate soldiers were buried side-by-side in places both great - like Arlington National Cemetery - and small like my hometown of Canton, Ohio.

Beginning almost immediately after the cessation of hostilities, it was deemed fitting to remember the soldiers by decorating their graves with flowers and wreathes.

That's what so many of you are doing here today and over the weekend decorating the graves of the fallen and remembering their sacrifices. It is right and fitting to do so.

It is also important to tell our children and grandchildren the stories both sad and happy; it truly is God's work.

Memorial Day is also a day of reconciliation, among nations, states, and especially within families.

On Memorial Day, I like to recall the words of Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address of January, 1865. With the end of the war in sight, Lincoln spoke about the peace to follow. He was very concerned that the nation heal.

Here's what he said, in part:

"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right. Let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves."

Lincoln had no plans to punish the South for their rebellion, for the treason of splitting away from the Union. No, instead he offered words of charity, and reconciliation, and hope.

The idea has resonated through the ages.

Winston Churchill famously said, speaking about Germany and Japan at the end of the Second World War:

"We must abandon bitterness and all wish for revenge."

He also was known to say:

"In war: RESOLUTION; in defeat: DEFIANT; in victory: MAGNANIMOUS

The words of Lincoln and Churchill are the distillate of lives of strife, torment, defeat, and triumph. We would do well to remember.

Many of us here today raised our right hands and took the military oath of office. I remember exactly where I was, and felt the weight of the words. I bet you do too,

I, Michael Van Ness, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely without mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God."

The oath of office is a blank check, written to the United States by men and women every day. Not only the office holder, but their families. Together, they commit themselves to defend the freedoms we hold most dear.

At times during my 13-year career as a Navy medical officer, I wondered what I had gotten myself into. But from the perspective of an old man, I am glad I wrote that check. I am glad I did my part. I was lucky. 

Not everyone was so lucky. Listen to the words of British poet John McCrae in his poem, In Flanders Fields: 

In Flanders Fields, the poppies grow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt the dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie, 

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe;

To you from failing hands we throw

the torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders Fields.

Difficult words to write. Difficult words to say. Difficult words to hear.

We, the living, have a duty to persevere. To pick up the standard and carry on.

Abraham Lincoln said it best, I believe, at Gettysburg, in the autumn of 1863, at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery when he concluded the Gettysburg Address with these words:

"It is rather for us 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 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, that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for the opportunity to share my thoughts on this Memorial Day.

I have quoted John McCrae, Winston Churchill, and Abraham Lincoln. They preached with their lives sermons of fortitude, reconciliation, and hope.

We would do well to remember their words as we write our own chapter in the cause of freedom. I pray we may do as well. Amen