Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

—Abraham Lincoln
Gettysburg
19 November 1863

Hello, Discoverylover!

It’s me. I found a copy of Mister Magorium’s Wonder Emporium for $8.83 yesterday, and I snapped it up. You may have gotten the better deal in your New Zealand dollars, though!

I remember visiting Gettysburg last year – we had dinner together that July evening, the fireflies zipping under Virginia trees – and being astonished that you had already been there. And to Harpers Ferry, Antietam and a few other battlefields. You are quite the student of military history!

One of the unexpected cultural movements of the past twenty-five years has been the increasing interest in Anzac Day. Stemming from the failed Australian and New Zealand invasion of Turkey in 1915, one might have thought that as the veterans of that war faded away, so too would the interest in commemorating the event.

But the reverse is true, and here in Canberra the Dawn Service – traditionally the beginning of winter as people get up before the sun and experience the first chill of the year – has grown from a quiet assembly in the courtyard of the Australian War Memorial to an event so large that it had to be moved out of the cloisters to the assembly area outside. Stands are erected and stalls are set up to dispense tea and biscuits in return for a donation.

The crowd listens in silent respect, stands up for hymns and a minute’s reflection on the sacrifices made, and as the sun rises out of New South Wales, as it did out of Asia nearly a hundred years ago, the boisterous white cockatoos swoop and frolic amongst the eucalypts, their noisy calls and skylarking reminding me of the young men who marched off on what seemed like a grand adventure.

I think you’d like the Australian War Memorial. It is a special place, full of memories, full of respect, full of reasons why we should think very carefully before taking up arms.

We like the silly, funny, boisterous movies and books, I know, but there is another side to the happy comfortable lives we have. A price that was paid. A debt we owe. An example we should never forget.

I am glad that you think on the past. And I am glad that so many young people look on places like Gallipoli – and Gettysburg – as fields of pilgrimage rather than battle. Places to discover what makes our nations what they are today. Lincoln wrote his Gettysburg address and made some lasting observations on liberty, democracy and devotion. And Kemal Ataturk, who at Gallipoli led the Turks in defending their land against the invaders, wrote some of the finest and most generous words I have ever read:

Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives. You are now living in the soil of a friendly country therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours. You, the mothers, who sent their sons from faraway countries wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well.

On that note, a poignant but comforting note as the bugle plays The Last Post, I’ll close.

Yours aye,
Skyring

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