155th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address, Nov. 19, 1863
Veteran's Day, Nov. 11, 2018
In 2018, Veteran's Day meets Gettysburg
No other tribute to veterans ever written more defines the American experience than the Gettysburg address.
Abraham Lincoln, speaking on the grounds of the Civil War Battlefield at Gettysburg, noted humbly and sadly that "the world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here."
But he was wrong. The world did take note and long remembered.
Packed into the two-minute, 271-word speech are some of the most iconic phrases and sentiments in American history.
The event, in November 1863, was to consecrate a burial ground for some of the 620,000 soldiers who died in the war. It took 100 years of foreign wars before that staggering death toll was surpassed. In the 1960s, the number of all Americans who died in every foreign war, including both world wars, at last eclipsed the number who died when American fought American and brother fought brother. Today, 644,000 soldiers have died in all other foreign conflicts.
The Gettysburg address has an eerie modern ring in these days of conflict and division.
"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."
Lincoln told the gathered crowd that the soldiers themselves had consecrated that ground with their blood.
He said it was up to the living to dedicate themselves to proving that they did not die in vain.
But instead to vow 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."
