Veterans Day

 

On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918 the guns fell, generally, silent. Today we honor all who have served and serve today in our military. May God bless them.

O LORD God of Hosts, stretch forth, we pray thee, thine almighty arm to strengthen and protect the soldiers of our country; Support them in the day of battle, and in the time of peace keep them safe from all evil; endue them with courage and loyalty; and grant that in all things they may serve without reproach; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

 

Respect,

LSP

Veterans Day

President Roosevelt said this on Armistice Day, 1941:

We know that it was, in literal truth, to make the world safe for democracy that we took up arms in 1917. It was, in simple truth and in literal fact, to make the world habitable for decent and self-respecting men that those whom we now remember gave their lives. They died to prevent then the very thing that now, a quarter century later, has happened from one end of Europe to the other.

Now that it has happened we know in full the reason why they died.

We know also what obligation and duty their sacrifice imposes upon us. They did not die to make the world safe for decency and self-respect for five years or ten or maybe twenty. They died to make it safe. And if, by some fault of ours who lived beyond the war, its safety has again been threatened then the obligation and the duty are ours. It is in our charge now, as it was America's charge after the Civil War, to see to it "that these dead shall not have died in vain." Sergeant York spoke thus of the cynics and doubters: "The thing they forget is that liberty and freedom and democracy are so very precious that you do not fight to win them once and stop. Liberty and freedom and democracy are prizes awarded only to those peoples who fight to win them and then keep fighting eternally to hold them."

The people of America agree with that. They believe that liberty is worth fighting for. And if they are obliged to fight they will fight eternally to hold it.

This duty we owe, not to ourselves alone, but to the many dead who died to gain our freedom for us-to make the world a place where freedom can live and grow into the ages.

The thing they forget is that liberty and freedom and democracy are so very precious that you do not fight to win them once and stop. Yes indeed, and the fight's clearly not over today, whether at home or abroad.

God bless,

LSP

Veterans Day

They're playing the Last Post from the courthouse right now and the mournful sound is carried on the wind over the town. 

Pray for those who made the ultimate sacrifice and for all veterans and members of the armed forces. 

Almighty God, we commend to your gracious care and keeping all members of our armed forces at home and abroad. Defend them day by day with your heavenly grace; strengthen them in their trials and temptations; give them courage to face the perils which beset them; and fill them a sense of your abiding, mighty presence wherever they may be; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Rest eternal grant unto the fallen, O Lord, and may light perpetual shine upon them. May they rest in peace.

God bless,

LSP