BC Cook
FOUR score years ago, our forefathers stormed the beaches of a continent in a great invasion of a not-so-distant war and rescued an idea, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all mankind is created equal.
Now the world is engaged in a great time of troubles, stained with blood and rocked with unrest, testing whether that idea, or any idea, can long endure. We are surrounded by the battlefields of that struggle: in Ukraine, in the South China Sea, in Israel, in Burma, in Ecuador, in Haiti, in the streets of America and Europe. We honor the lives and the sacrifice of those who participated in the great Second World War and it is fitting and proper that we do this.
But in a larger sense, we cannot fully honor their sacrifice while squandering away what they fought so hard to build and protect. Through blood, sweat, toil, and tears, they tried to build a better world, a kinder, safer one, in which we and our children could pursue our desires in peace. It is for us, the living, to be dedicated to the unfinished work which they have so far nobly advanced. It is also for us to be dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from the honored dead of countless struggles and conflicts we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave their last full measure of devotion, that we highly resolve that these men and women shall not have died in vain, that this world 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.
BC Cook, PhD lived on Saipan and has taught history for over 30 years. He is a director and historian at Sealark Exploration (sealarkexploration.org).
