It’s Memorial Day, May 27th, 2013…and here’s The Gouge!
We were honored to have the chance to speak in church briefly on Sunday to help mark Memorial Day; with apologies for the format, which didn’t transfer well from Word, the following is a transcript of our thoughts on the occasion:
This weekend we honor the countless Americans throughout our history who’ve given what Abraham Lincoln so perfectly…and appropriately…described as the last full measure of devotion. They sacrificed their lives neither eagerly nor blindly; no sane man enters combat wanting to die. But they acted willingly…because of the unbreakable bond they shared with their comrades, and an unshakeable faith in a great nation they believed worth fighting and dying for.
The movie Zulu tells the story of some 150 British troops who on, 22nd January, 1879, defended the tiny mission station at Rorke’s Drift against a force of almost 4,000 Zulu warriors, part of a Zulu army of nearly 20,000 who earlier in the day had attacked and slaughtered almost an entire British column of 1,800 men.
One of the film’s most memorable scenes comes just before the fighting begins, as the soldiers are confronted with the reality of what they’re facing: a desperate struggle against overwhelming odds.
A trembling young private turns to his Colour Sergeant, the most senior, experienced enlisted man in the unit, and asks the same question posed by every soldier, sailor, airman or marine in every battle since mankind first waged war: “Why is it us? Why us?”
To which the Colour Sargeant coolly replies: “Because we’re here, lad. Nobody else. Just us.”
On July 2nd, 1863, the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg, Major General Winfield Scott Hancock sat astride his horse watching a mass of Confederates rushing towards a gaping hole in the left of the Union line. Hancock likely didn’t realize the fate of the nation was at this moment in his hands, but he certainly understood the outcome of the battle was.
Looking about, he saw only one unit, the 1st Minnesota an undersized regiment of only 262 men under Colonel William Colvill, available to plug the gap. Pointing across the field to the advancing Confederate battle flags, Hancock shouted to Colvill, “Do you see those colors? Take them!”
Hancock needed a few precious minutes to bring up the reinforcements necessary to secure the Union line, and the lives of 1st Minnesota were the only means with which he could gain them. One survivor later stated he fully expected the advance to result in “death or wounds to every single one of the attackers.” He wasn’t far off, as the regiment suffered a casualty rate of over 83%, the highest ever in a single day by a surviving unit in U.S. military history. They didn’t want to be there, and they most definitely weren’t keen on charging into the face of almost certain death. But charge they did; without question…without hesitation; because they were there…nobody else…just them.
Hancock later described the 1st Minnesota’s heroism as the highest in the known annals of war. And when dedicating a memorial to their courage, President Calvin Coolidge thought Colonel Colvill and his eight companies “entitled to rank as the saviors of their country.”
On Memorial Day, we stop and recognize these men, and the hundreds of thousands of others like them, who paid the ultimate price for our freedom. As Lincoln noted, “It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this” in order that “these dead shall not have died in vain” and “that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom.”
2,000 years ago, the fate of the entire world rested upon the shoulders of the true Savior. His anguished prayers in the Garden of Gethsemane bear witness to the fact he too would, were it possible, have avoided the certain, painful fate awaiting him. But he too was obedient unto death…even the death of the cross.
And though it’s important we take a day to remember the sacrifice of those who died to make us free, I’d suggest, for us as Christians, it’s immeasurably more important we never forget the great price the one who died to make us holy paid for our salvation. And that we live our lives every day as proof His suffering and death was not in vain.
Whatever you’re doing Memorial Day, remember those who gave their all for us…
…as well as those they left behind, giving thanks to God for their courage and sacrifice.
Magoo
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