Memorial Day Prayer at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, by Rabbi Arnold Resnicoff on 28 May 2018

Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International

Date: 2018-12-09

Last Updated: 2025-03-27

Categories: 🇺🇸 Memorial Day (last Monday of May), 🇺🇸 United States of America

Tags: 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., Decoration Day, English vernacular prayer, Vietnam Veterans Memorial

Excerpt: A prayer offered by Rabbi Arnold E. Resnicoff at the Vietnam War Memorial on Memorial Day May 28th 2018. . . .

Content:

Contribute a translation	Source (English)
	Almighty God, We pray, reflect, meditate in different ways … but come together to mourn our dead, remember their sacrifice, and honor their memory.
	150 years ago – almost to the day – after the Civil War, America created Decoration Day: a time to visit graves of our war dead, and decorate them with flags and flowers. Time passed. New wars fought. Many graves now too far to visit: across the seas, or even in the ocean, deep; some bodies, destroyed by ever more powerful weapons of war, had no graves at all.
	So Decoration Day became Memorial Day: a time not just to decorate graves, but to commemorate lives, and to consecrate sacrifice, heroism, loss – through the stories we tell, and the lives that we lead.
	Today, as we remember those whose names are on this wall, along with all who perished, fighting America’s wars, let us recall the words of Archibald MacLeish in his poem “The Young Dead Soldiers”:^[1] Full title: “The Young Dead Soldiers Do Not Speak.” “They say: Whether our lives and our deaths were for peace, and a new hope… or for nothing, we cannot say. It is you who must say this. We leave you our deaths. Give them their meaning. We were young, they say. We have died. Remember us.”
	God, on this Memorial Day we mourn, remember and honor our fallen. May their sacrifice help us build a world where we might finally beat our swords into ploughshares and war will be no more.^[2] Cf. Isaiah 2:4, Micah 4:3. And may we say, Amen.

Source

Notes

Notes
1	Full title: “The Young Dead Soldiers Do Not Speak.”
2	Cf. Isaiah 2:4, Micah 4:3.

Contributor: Arnold E. Resnicoff

Co-authors:

Name: Arnold E. Resnicoff
Bio: Arnold E. Resnicoff (born 1946) is a Conservative rabbi who began his career serving as a military officer and then as a military chaplain. He served in Vietnam and Europe before attending rabbinical school after which he was a U.S. Navy Chaplain for almost 25 years. After the Vietnam War, he promoted the creation of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and delivered the closing prayer at its 1982 dedication. Rabbi Resnicoff was present at the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing and the following year, President Ronald Reagan shared Rabbi Resnicoff's eyewitness account. After retiring from the military he became the National Director of Interreligious Affairs for the American Jewish Committee and served as Special Assistant (for Values and Vision) to the Secretary and Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force, serving at the equivalent military rank of Brigadier General. Resnicoff holds several degrees, including an honorary doctorate. His awards include the Defense Superior Service Medal, the Department of the Air Force Decoration for Exceptional Civilian Service, and the Chapel of Four Chaplains Hall of Heroes Gold Medallion.
Website: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_Resnicoff
Profile Link: https://opensiddur.org/profile/arnold-resnicoff

Featured Image:

Title: Rabbi Arnold E. Resnicoff, retired Navy chaplain, stands next to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. (NCR photo, Rick Reinhard)
Caption: "Rabbi Arnold E. Resnicoff, retired Navy chaplain, stands next to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. " (NCR photo, Rick Reinhard, 2017)