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Guest Chaplain: Rabbi Arnold E. Resnicoff, Retired Navy Chaplain, Washington, DC
Date of Prayer: 22 October 2024
Date of Prayer: 22 October 2024
| Contribute a translation | Source (English) |
|---|---|
If you pray, please pray with me — If not, just pause to dream. | |
Almighty God, While hostages suffer, We remember Broadway’s Les Mis plea: “God on High, hear my prayer, In my need, You have always been there. Bring him — [Bring them all] — home.”[1] From the musical, Les Misérables (1980), lyrics by Herbert Kretzmer (1925-2020). | |
41 years ago, tomorrow: I saw the Beirut Barracks Bombing Take 241 US military lives. Then another bomb: 58 French. | |
They came in peace To a war-torn land. Like heroes through the ages, All gave some; some gave all.[2] Variations of the line in the context of military memorials are attested as early as 1899 (as far as I can tell). On 20 September 1899, the governor of the state of Indiana, James Atwell Mount (1843-1901) delivered a speech in Chattanooga, Tennessee as part of ceremonies commemorating the Civil War Battle of Chickamauga. The battle fought on 18-20 September 1863, involved the second-highest number of casualties after the Battle of Gettysburg, nearly four thousand of them from Indiana. “Indiana soldiers were the first engaged in this terrible conflict and the last to retire from the bloody field. The State lost in this engagement 3,926 men. Indiana had more men actually engaged in the battle of Chickamauga, and sustained a greater loss in killed and wounded, than the United States lost on land and sea in defeating the Spanish armies and in destroying their fleets….No monument can be made too imposing, no tribute too lofty for those who gave the full measure of their patriotic devotion to the country. All the Indiana soldiers who fought here in sacrifice, in suffering, gave much, some gave all for the Nation’s life.” (“Dead Honored…Speech by Governor Mount” in The Indianapolis Journal (21 September 1899), page 1.) After World War Ⅰ, another variation of the line was offered at a memorial, this time offered by Judge Wendell Phillips Stafford (1861-1953), Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia. “It has been our fortune to watch from day to day the dramatic course of the greatest war in history. One by one we have seen it draw into its whirlpool all the strong nations of the earth. Even our own republic, that hated war, was compelled at last by plain regard to its own safety and simple fidelity to its own principles to take a part. But there were those among us who had the high privilege of doing something more than watch the battle; they were themselves a part of it. They helped to win the war. They risked all they had: and some gave all they had.” (“Judge Stafford’s Speech” in The Weekly Caledonian (24 September 1919), page 1.) By 1952, a more current variation of the line was being used as a slogan for war memorials. (Find, “Dedicated to those who rendered service to their Country…all gave some…some gave all” an Electra Military Memorial Board civic advertisement for the “Proposed Electra Military Memorial to be Placed in the New Electra Memorial Park Cemetery” (Electra Star, 29 May 1952, page 7). (It remains unclear why the line has been popularly (and widely) misattributed to Howard William Osterkamp (1929-1916), a Marine Sergeant in the Korean War (1951-1953) awarded the Purple Heart medal.) If you know of an earlier use of this line than 1899, please contact us. –Aharon Varady | |
In 14 days we vote for leaders Through life’s wilderness of tears and fears: a nation too divided; a world that’s still at war; So many dead that all should suffer sorrow, horror, pain. | |
Too easy to lose faith in dreams of better times: Swords to plowshares. War no more. None shall live in fear.[3] Cf. Isaiah 2:4, Micah 4:3-4. For “Swords to plowshares,” also find Joel 4:10. God, bring them — those visions — home.[4] Find above, the lines from Les Misérables. Help us keep our dreams. And may we say, Amen. |
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