Compass Points - Memorial Day Party
Remembering those who paid the price.
Compass Points - Memorial Day Party
Remembering those who paid the price.
May 27, 2024
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A Blessed Memorial Day
On this Memorial Day, Compass Points joins with the entire Marine community to honor all those who gave their lives in service to our Nation. Although our Nation has many disputes today, it might be thought that all could agree on the appropriateness of honoring the dead. Not so. Just this morning at a well known university in New Jersey, local news reports protesters disrupted a solemn Memorial Day parade. Perhaps the protesters did not know anything about Memorial Day.
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The protestors should have learned at some point that Memorial Day is observed in the United States on the last Monday in May, to honor the men and women who died in military service.
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The day became an official holiday in 1971, but its roots go back to the informal "Decoration Day" that began after the Civil War. Many Americans observe Memorial Day by visiting cemeteries or memorials. Memorial Day is also marked by parades, family gatherings, as well as all kinds of parties -- endless, endless parties.
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Memorial Day
Party
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One endless party,
Yet always recall,
Somebody always,
Must pay for it all.
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Smiles so bright,
Dance day and night,
Laughter, and drinks and fun.
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Nothing sour,
Mars the hours,
Silly and sensual.
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An open bar,
And caviar,
Who pays for this big blast?
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Champagne on ice,
A growing price.
Who covers all that's asked?
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And then, near dawn,
The final song,
The somber bill parade.
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The fun we’ve had,
Now here’s the tab,
The price we can't escape.
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Brutal cost
So many lost
In sacrifice and violence.
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One bugle swells,
And stories tell,
Of better ones now silent.
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Beyond the party,
They heard the call.
Let’s pause and give thanks,
To those who gave all.
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-- © JDK
'till the last landings made
and we stand unafraid
on a shore no mortal has seen.
'till the last bugle call
sounds taps for us all
it's Semper Fidelis, MARINE!
Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address “
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 battle-field 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.”