It has been nearly five years since I honored here two family members who gave the "last full measure of devotion" in France during World War I: Harry Gilbert Faulk and Hezekiah Scovil Porter, both of the 101st Machine Gun Battalion. Today, for Harry I post a picture of the tree planted in his memory in Cypress Cemetery, Old Saybrook, Connecticut. It has been a few years since World War I.
For Hez, these pages from Yale in the World War (George Henry Nettleton, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1925).
Here's another Memorial Day thought from Patrick Deneen, who reminds us that while politicians may send soldiers into battle for ideas and ideals, the soldiers themselves fight for something much more personal.
No soldier dies for a theory. He dies on behalf of the people with whom he enters battle, seeking to save those whom he loves, to whom he feels a strong sense of duty, and for whom he is willing to make the ultimate sacrifice. Today, on this day of remembrance, we should recall not only the lives and deaths of the soldiers whom we rightly honor, but the right and proper grounds for their sacrifice, and keep in mind those reasons as we seek to defend, in our own less demanding ways, a nation of particular places, particular people, and particular memories.
