For the moment, as we look ahead to Veterans Day, we conclude this series, the same way we began:
Featuring a Memorial Day speech from President Ronald Reagan, which supplied our banner for the series:
“The price for this freedom has been high … but we have never been unwilling to pay that price.”
Now, we feature the same speech, with new video background.
But, the words still ring true.
Here’s what we wrote, back in June, as we began this series:
Just think of all the freedoms we enjoy … every day …
We should pause … every day … to think about … to remember … to appreciate … to honor …
to pay our deepest respect and gratitude … To carefully consider …
What this freedom cost.
Included in the speech was an emotional reading of “The Pledge,” sometimes called “The Warriors Pledge” or “The Soldiers Pledge,” which was discovered in the diary of fallen soldier Martin A. Treptow.
Here is the exact text, written on the flyleaf of the
young soldier’s 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.
“We must realize that no arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women … It is a weapon that we as Americans do have … Let that be understood by those who practice terrorism, and prey
upon their neighbors … They will be reminded that peace is the highest aspiration of the American people. We will negotiate for it … sacrifice for it … We will not surrender for it … Now or ever …
We are Americans”
President Ronald Reagan
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