By SGT Nathan Martin
Delivered: Veteran’s Day, 2006
In 1806, in a debtor’s prison lay a man about to die. If an individual takes into account that lone statement, he will have missed that man’s legacy and his importance. Thirty years earlier that same man signed a document of treason, loaned his fortune to a revolutionary cause, and put America on strong footing by helping to create a national bank. Yet, for all he had done, he lay impoverished, imprisoned, and near death. Good men would have complained. This great man did not. We may look back and believe that this was an injustice. That wasn’t the point to Mr. Robert Morris. The point of this story is, while good men do what is right for their own benefit, great men do what is right because it is right. The point to Mr. Morris surely was the fact that he died having felt freedom’s embrace.
Today we find ourselves in a similar situation. Chaos abounds, wars and rumors of wars hold us at a daily pause on the front page. However, it is imperative that we understand that the point of what we experience is not the experience itself, it is that we experience it in a greater context, in freedom’s embrace.
Thus, we honor those who have gone before on this solemn occasion. Not good, but great men and women who fought, and some died. Not to give us our freedom, but to allow us the opportunity to experience the freedom that God himself has granted. Their stories are many. Some of courage, some of sacrifice, all about a lasting legacy of service, and it is in this legacy that we ourselves, as Americans, can take solace. Freedom’s sacrifice opens freedom’s door. Lest we forget that when we live today as free men, there were men, not yet free who died to give us the great opportunity. For, as Mark Twain wrote: In the beginning of a change, the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot. In this light, we honor the veteran who has been willing to make that sacrifice for our God-given freedom. Today let us embrace those who serve, those who have served, and those whose service has been immortalized. So, that many years from now, when we are on our death bed, no matter what circumstance in which that experience occurs, we can look back and understand that because of these great patriots we died having felt freedom’s embrace.