Sunday, June 6, 2010

Let us die to make men free

An amazing, in the broadest possible sense of the word, line from The Battle Hymn of the Republic. A line that we can hardly imagine singing let alone actually meaning it.

Sixty-six years ago today, men who could say those words with absolute sincerity did an amazing thing. The world is still a better place today because they did. They did make men free and an awful lot of them died doing so.

One of the ones who fought and lived was an uncle of mine. For his entire life, he never bragged about it even once. No one knew in the family about it until his funeral when an honor guard from the 101st Airborne showed up.

2 comments:

  1. That line is relating to freeing the slaves of the south of America

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes it is. Did you think that I somehow didn't know?

    ReplyDelete