INSIGHT
"[L]et us solemnly remember the sacrifices of all those who fought so valiantly, on the seas, in the air, and on foreign shores, to preserve our heritage of freedom, and let us re-consecrate ourselves to the task of promoting an enduring peace so that their efforts shall not have been in vain." -- Dwight Eisenhower
"Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few." -- Sir Winston Churchill
"No person was ever honored for what he received. Honor has been the reward for what he gave." -- Calvin Coolidge
"Not only are they commemorated by columns and inscriptions, but there dwells also an unwritten memorial of them, graven not on stone but in the hearts of men." -- Pericles
LIBERTY
"These Endured All And Gave All That
Justice Among Nations Might Prevail and
That Mankind Might Enjoy Freedom and
Inherit Peace."
-- inscription on a memorial at the American Cemetery overlooking Omaha Beach
THE GIPPER
"I have no illusions about what little I can add now to the silent testimony of those who gave their lives willingly for their country. Words are even more feeble on this Memorial Day, for the sight before us is that of a strong and good nation that stands in silence and remembers those who were loved and who, in return, loved their countrymen enough to die for them. Yet, we must try to honor them -- not for their sakes alone, but for our own. And if words cannot repay the debt we owe these men, surely with our actions we must strive to keep faith with them and with the vision that led them to battle and to final sacrifice. Our first obligation to them and ourselves is plain enough: The United States and the freedom for which it stands, the freedom for which they died, must endure and prosper." -- Ronald Reagan
CULTURE
"As we pause this Memorial Day to honor those who died to preserve our freedom, it's a good time to take stock of the threats to our nation. I believe that the greatest threat is internal decay that results from a lack of knowledge of those things that make America great." -- Lee Wishing, administrative director of The Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College
OPINION IN BRIEF
"More than most nations, America has been, from its start, a hero-loving place. ... George Washington was our first national hero, known everywhere, famous to children. When he died, we had our first true national mourning, with cities and states re-enacting his funeral. There was the genius cluster that surrounded him, and invented us -- Jefferson, Adams, Madison, Hamilton. Through much of the 20th century our famous heroes were in sports (Jack Dempsey, Joe Louis, the Babe, Joltin' Joe) the arts (Clark Gable, Robert Frost) business and philanthropy (from Andrew Carnegie to Bill Gates) and religion (Billy Graham). Nobody does fame like America, and they were famous. The category of military hero -- warrior -- fell off a bit, in part because of the bad reputation of war. Some emerged of heroic size -- Gens. Pershing and Patton, Eisenhower and Marshall. But somewhere in the 1960s I think we decided, or the makers of our culture decided, that to celebrate great warriors was to encourage war. And we always have too much of that. So they made a lot of movies depicting soldiers as victims and officers as brutish. This was especially true in the Vietnam era and the years that followed. Maybe a correction was in order: It's good to remember war is hell. But when we removed the warrior, we removed something intensely human, something ancestral and stirring, something celebrated naturally throughout the long history of man. Also it was ungrateful: They put themselves in harm's way for us." -- columnist Peggy Noonan
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