A gentle reminder ...

The goal of this blog initially was for Mr. Mc to show his students and friends what he doing while in Pennsylvania and DC in 2011. Now it's being used as a place for him, travelling colleagues and former students to discuss edumacation and history related "stuff" as well as ... well, anything which pops into his head. Mr. Mc would never knowingly embarrass either the school he loves or the family he is devoted to. By joining in the discussion, he expects the same of you.

Monday, May 26, 2014

4 to 50:Talk to your grandparents (part one, war)


 
Today is Memorial Day.
 
My wife and sister-in-law are heading to Pratt, Kansas to place flowers on headstones and my sons are serving as greeters at Maple Grove Cemetery here in Wichita. As a military kid and veteran myself, this day is one of pride and reflection.
 
Today's thought is simple:
 
Remember.
 
I can't express my thoughts better than Lincoln did more than 151 years ago, so I won't even try. I will let his words, and my camera speak for themselves. The images are from Gettysburg National Military Park, Gettysburg National Cemetery, Maple Grove Cemetery (Wichita, KS) and monuments and memorials from Washington DC.
 
"Fourscore 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 battlefield 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 cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot 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."
 





 
 


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