Today's DAR
Today is a day set aside on our national calendar to honor the men and women who have lost their lives serving in the uniform of our nation. To them and to their families, I express my sincere gratitude and deepest thanks as a grateful citizen.
I would also like to convey my appreciation to those of you who, as individuals or a chapter, will make time to take part in local ceremonies to honor our nation’s war dead. I will be the keynote speaker at our local rural cemetery, where more than 700 veterans are buried. Among them is Private Sydney Scofield, a causality of the Spanish American War, and Derick Brinckerhoff, who was the first man from our county killed in the Korean War. Two young men who died in far-off places because their country asked them to fight for American values and interests. Please search out the stories of the heroes in your local community who gave their last measure in devotion to these United States of America.
Far too many Americans have come to think of this as only the unofficial holiday to begin the summer season – please: be an example of the true purpose behind this national observance. Let us not break the faith with these brave Americans, as so eloquently expressed in the World War I poem by John McCrae,
In Flanders Fields
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
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 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.
