• We must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately. -Benjamin Franklin, Freedom Fighter

  • We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. -Martin Luther King, Jr., Freedom Fighter

  • Let us be cautious in making assertions and critical in examining them, but tolerant in permitting linguistic forms. -Rudolf Carnap, Philosopher

  • A clash of doctrines is not a disaster—it is an opportunity. -Alfred North Whitehead, Philosopher

  • If we could read the secret history of our enemies we should find in each man’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility. -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Poet

  • Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there. -Rumi, Mystic

  • If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things. – Rene Descartes, Philosopher

  • A house divided against itself cannot stand. -Abraham Lincoln, President

  • Problems cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them. -Albert Einstein, Scientist

  • Be the change you want to see in the world. -Mahatma Gandhi, Freedom Fighter

- May 30, 2005 -

Memorial Day, 2005

… that these dead shall not have died in vain.
Abraham Lincoln

 

Aaron Elandt, Iraq War … Abraham Lincoln, President … Andrew Goodman, Civil Rights Worker … Anna Campos, Spanish American War … Antonio Francisco Abad, World War II … Charles Bent, Mexican Campaign … Chief Black Kettle, Indian Wars … Clem Moser, World War I … David Douglas, Union Army, Civil War … Donald McIntosh, Indian Wars … Edgar Hubert, Spanish-American War … Edmund Rice, Union Army, Civil War … Emily [unknown last name], Union Army, Civil War … George Cohen, World War II … Ivan Appleby, Vietnam War … James Newell, War of 1812 … John Dzeda, World War I … Joseph Freeman, World War I … Kurt Gruber, World War II … Nathan Hale, War for Independence … James Earl Chaney, Civil Rights Worker … Jesse Farley Dyer, Mexican Campaign … John Fitzgerald Kennedy, President … Justin Pollard, Iraq War … Lars Larsen, World War I … Mary Hartso, World War II … Michael Schwerner, Civil Rights Worker … Mitchell Red Cloud Jr., Korean War … Mohammed Ali, World War II … Ramon C. Ojeda, Iraq War … Reuben Smith Turman, Spanish-American War … Russell Smith, Jr, Persian Gulf War … Sitting Bull, Indian Wars … Stanley Bartusiak, Persian Gulf War … Taylor Maricle, Union Army, Civil War … Thomas H. Amos, Vietnam War … Walter Szeliga, World War II … Warren Brand, Confederate States Of America, Civil War … William Dunkin, War of 1812 … Wilma Ledbetter, Korean War

Since that March evening in 1770, 6 years before the Declaration, when Crispus Attucks became the first American to give his last full measure of devotion to the birth of a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal … since that cold Spring evening in Boston, nearly 1,000,000 Americans have, like Crispus Attucks and the Patriots killed 6 years later at Lexington and Concord, given their last full measure of devotion so that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.

Nearly 1,000,000 Americans have died so that we might live free; so that we might extend liberty’s blessings to those who are not yet free, preserving it for those who are not yet born.

Men and Women… Republicans … Democrats … Federalists and Whigs … Pennsylvanians … Michiganders … New Yorkers … Texans … Washingtonians … Floridians … Californians … Right-Wing Conservatives … Left-Wing Liberals … Socialists … Communists … Capitalists … Unionists … Brits … Native Americans … French … Japanese … Chinese … Koreans … Nigerians … Armenians … Germans … Russians … Czechs … Italians … Columbians … Mexicans … Salvadorans…Indians … Pakistanis … Egyptians … Lebanese … Syrians … Israelis … Whites … Blacks … Yellows … Reds … Christians … Jews … Buddhists … Moslems … Catholics … Born-Agains and Atheists … Straights … Gays … Lesbians.

The rockets at Valley Forge knew no ethnicity.

The cannons at Gettysburg were colorblind.

The bullets at Omaha Beach knew no God.

The bombs in Baghdad have no sexual orientation.

Freedom is the birthright of all for it has been won by the sacrifice of all.

Let Freedom Ring.

Copyright © 2005. Stan Stahl. All Rights Reserved. Permission is granted to republish this essay in its entirety provided its source is identified asThe Agnostic Patriot at www.agnosticpatriot.org and this copyright is included.

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