Speech "Our Sacred Duty to the Dead must be to Remember Lest We Forget"

Message delivered on Saturday December 6th 2008 at Grave marker dedication ceremony for John Furgeson, Union Soldier, interred at the Old City Cemetery in Lynchburg, Va

Brothers, Sisters and Friends, today we met here as the representatives of the Sons of Union Veterans and the Allied Orders of the Civil War to dedicate a grave marker in memory and honor of John Furgeson, a loyal Union soldier who never return home from war.  After many years of lying in a grave marked simply J.F. Y.P. [ John Furgeson Yankee Prisoner] he now rests  remembered and unforgotten, having been finally identified to the world by his christian name.  Many have had a hand in returning John from being lost to history, and you have ensured that his sacrifice on the alter of freedom will be known, by this and future generations, with this simple marker; a token which will bind John's life to our own through the years to come. 

Until now only the stars have stood watch over him as he slept in life and death. They comforted him during the long nights on the battlefields of that great and terrible war and they illuminated his final resting place while he has  lain in the soil of the Virginia.   

Now we, who gather here today, are also charged to stand watch.  We are charged by the spirit of this man to never forget that he lived.  I pray that the cold temperatures and light snow we are experiencing at this ceremony etch a vivid  memory, that will remind us that it is our duty, as the sons of soldiers who experienced the life and death struggle of  war, to honor the memory of the men who stood shoulder to shoulder on the bloody fields of battle, and  gave, as President Lincoln so reverently said, the last full measure of devotion to their country. 

We like the stars must stand guard and cast a light into the world.  We must each seek to illuminate the memory of John and countless others in order to save them from the darkness of apathy and obscurity.

Yes John and his companions in arms have passed from mortal view, but it is now our sacred duty to perpetuate his memory and the memory of all who fought to defend the Great country we call America and the principles upon which it was  created.

 

Written and presented by Mark R. Day, copyright by Mark R. Day 25 September 2012, all rights reserved