Memorial Day – Remembering those of our Military who did not learn not to

Memorial Day – Remembering those of our Military who did not learn not to
My friend Jimi posted a video of a video portion of President Reagan’s First Inaugural Address that’s highly fitting for Memorial Day, and while I’d heard it before, somehow I’d missed that part of what he was reading, the most moving part, was from an inscription that a soldier who died in WWI, Private Martin A. Treptow, had made in his journal. Treptow wasn’t a philosopher or a teacher or any sort of ‘intellectual’, he was a person who worked in a barber shop who simply understood that what he valued was worth, and required, defending.

What has become known as ‘Treptow’s Pledge‘, comes from the flyleaf of his diary:

“My Pledge: America must win this war. Therefore, I will work, I will save, I will sacrifice, I will endure, I will fight cheerfully and do my utmost, as if the issue of the whole struggle depended on me alone.”

Remarkable. However what might be most remarkable of all, is that in our world today, such a pledge seems remarkable to us, whereas for Treptow, a barber from a century ago, he considered it to be a simple matter of course, a simple truth that was worth reflecting upon in his diary, so that he could get on with carrying it out.

Remember today those who put their lives on the line for this nation, and in the course of doing so, lost them.

Reflect on what it is about America that could, and should, inspire such ideals, and on the Consitution which those we memorialize on this day, swore their lives to defend.

Consider also why it might be that such pledges might seem unusual to us today. As in a different context, a person being interviewed for his heroic actions replied to the question of how a person learns to willingly risk their life for another, the puzzled hero replied:

“How does he learn not to?”

Remember today, and give a moment’s thanks, to those of our United States Military who lost their lives in service to their nation, because they did not learn not to.

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