It’s Monday, May 29th, Memorial Day 2023…and keeping with tradition, we know no better way of honoring America’s fallen heroes than by marking their day with perhaps the most poignant speech ever written; which was penned, appropriately enough, by the only President who ever truly gave his life for his country:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. 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—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd who veritably laid down His life for His sheep, said it best in John 15:13: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends”…or his country.

This Memorial Day, it’s altogether fitting and proper to present Best of the Web‘s account of one such man who, in the manner in which he gave that last full measure of devotion, made his family, the Silent Service and a grateful nation proud:

Eighty years ago, a U.S. Navy captain chose to go down with the ship.

We hope you enjoy your freedom this Memorial Day by taking more than a moment to remember those who made it possible, along with those…

…they left behind.

Magoo

Video of the Day

Ronald Reagan’s moving Memorial Day tribute.

A Tribute to the Best and Bravest

All gave some, some gave all.  Here’s to the latter.  Woe betide the leader who engages our Military without a just and pressing purpose.

On the Lighter Side

A brief history of Memorial Day that definitely deserves to be remembered.