Words ring out across the years

We had a busy time last week. It has been years since we have taken a vacation that didn’t involve the long trip to Texas to spend some time with the kids. The older we get, the longer that ride seems. I look forward to the day when the kids can drive and come up here to visit. I would even be happy to meet them half way.

After our stop in Hershey, Pennsylvania, we headed for Gettysburg. My husband is a history buff and had always wanted to go. Me, I despised history. In our teachers’ rush to get through whatever history book we were using, all those years of conflict were reduced to names of generals and dates of the wars. There was seldom a casualty count. The causes that led up to the killing were sketchy, at best. I don’t remember any time that we focused on the good that came out of the horrors that resulted from any war.

On the other hand, going to important locations associated with our past brings home the reality of what those generals saw as they sent their soldiers to die. It was a bright, sunny day when we were there. An ancient gnome of a man was our driver for the tour around the area.

We saw statue after statue. All of them told a story. Some told of the fear of going into battle, not knowing if they were going to live through it. Others told of victories. Then there was the figure of President Eisenhower. What was he doing there?

The home and farm of General and President Dwight D. Eisenhower is located adjacent to the Gettysburg Battlefield. It served the President as a weekend retreat and a meeting place for world leaders. It was a much needed respite from Washington and a backdrop for efforts to reduce Cold War tensions. He picked a beautiful place as a retreat. Perhaps we will go through it next time.

The Battle of Gettysburg was a turning point in the Civil War, the Union victory that ended General Robert E. Lee’s second and most ambitious invasion of the North. Gettysburg was the Civil War’s bloodiest battle and was also the inspiration for President Abraham Lincoln’s immortal “Gettysburg Address.”

When I was in sixth grade our teacher thought we should be able to recite it. I am lousy at memorization and that is being kind. But I tried, I really did, Most of the time I can quote the first line. I looked it up and to my surprise found that there were three or four versions of the speech. This is the one I was taught.

“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.”