Wishing you a safe and happy Memorial Day weekend and, please, amid your boat rides, barbecue and beer, be sure to stop at some point and take a moment to remember what this holiday is really about.

Image: Incidents of the war. A harvest of death, Gettysburg, July, 1863

No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends (Jn. 15:13)

For all those who have lost loved ones in battle I pray, in the words of Abraham Lincoln:

that our heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.

For our fallen soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines past and present, known and unknown (including military chaplains); for those who died in battle and for the many veterans and other service men and women we have lost over the years:

Eternal rest, grant unto them, O Lord,
and let perpetual light shine upon them.
May they rest in peace.
Amen.

RIP Maj. Dick Winters (January 21, 1918 – January 2, 2011)
Faces of the Fallen – an up to date list of U.S. troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan
RIP Darin Thomas Settle
Adopt a Platoon