The Necessary Persistence of Memory

We were born in a crucible of fire and blood…of the sweat and the tears and the courage and the hypocrisy and the bravado that only fools and visionaries and freedmen and dreamers know intimately.

We were born of blood on the ancient byways of the Old World, blood on the fertile realms of noble Africa and blood on the plains, and the verdant fields of a “New World”.

We were born of blood spilled in burgeoning colonies created…by hubris and guile and deception, by force of will and force of arms, by self-anointed divine right…from the bright and blue, majestic and expansive, hardscrabble and bountiful, land we claimed as our own.

We were born of the blood of the young spilled on battlefields near and far…in Lexington and Valley Forge, in the shadow of the majestic Rio Grande, at Fort Sumter and in Gettysburg and Atlanta; in Cuba and Germany and France and North Africa and the blue Pacific; in Selma and Mississippi, Dallas and Memphis and Chicago and Kent State and Los Angeles; in Korea and Vietnam and Kuwait and Somalia and Afghanistan and Iraq…and we remember.

We born of the blood of the young spilled…in the name of freedom, in the name of justice, in the name of manifest destiny, in the name of a fragile union, in the name of ending tyranny and injustice and war itself, in the name of self-protection, in the name of peace…and we remember.

We were born in a crucible of fire and blood…sweat and tears and passion and setbacks and triumphs. We were born from the sacrifices of our young…and, in the necessary persistence of memory, we remember.