This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human.

The Michael Berry Show.

Mr. President, General, the distinguished guest here with us today, my fellow citizens.

In America, cities and towns today, flags will be placed on graves and cemeteries.

Public officials will speak of the sacrifice and the valor of those whose memory we honor.

In 1863, when he dedicated a small cemetery in Pennsylvania marking a terrible collision between the armies of North and South.

Abraham Lincoln noted the swift obscurity of such speeches.

But we know now that Lincoln was wrong about that particular occasion.

His remarks commemorating those who gave their last full measure of devotion were

long remembered. But since that moment at Gettysburg, few other such addresses have become

part of our national heritage, not because of the inadequacy to speakers, but because of

the inadequacy of words. I have new illusions about what little I can add now

to the silent testimony of those who gave their lives willingly for their country.

Words are even more feeble on this memorial day.

For the sight before us is that of a strong and good nation

that stands in silence and remembers those

who were loved and who in return loved their countrymen enough to die for them. Yet we

must try to honor them, not for their sakes alone, but for our own. And if words cannot

repay the debt we owe these men, surely with our actions,

we must strive to keep faith with them and with a vision that led them to battle and a final

sacrifice. Our first obligation to them and ourselves is plain enough. The United States

and the freedom for which it stands, the freedom of

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