“It is, in a way, an odd thing to honor those who died in defense of our country in wars far away. The imagination plays a trick. We see these soldiers in our mind as old and wise. We see them as something like the Founding Fathers, grave and gray-haired. But most of them were boys when they died; they gave up two lives — the one they were living and the one they would have lived. When they died, they gave up their chance to be husbands and fathers and grandfathers. They gave up their chance to be revered old men. They gave up everything for their county, for us.

All we can do is remember.”

~ Ronald Wilson Reagan
Remarks at Veteran’s Day ceremony, Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Virginia, November 11, 1985

The purpose of all war is peace. –Saint Augustine

But the freedom that they fought for,
and the country grand they wrought for,
Is their monument to-day, and for aye.
~Thomas Dunn English

All we have of freedom, all we use or know – This our fathers bought for us long and long ago.
~Rudyard Kipling, “The Old Issue,” 1899

Posterity: you will never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it.
~John Quincy Adams

(Graphic courtesy of Anne’s Place)