Today is Veterans’ Day, and in just a short time these Marines (scroll down right side to photo, then click “Enlarge”) will be veterans. I can’t look at their picture without tears coming to my eyes.
I’m so proud. Our troops have done a superb job in Fallujah–and so far we have lost just 11 of them. Now, and thanks to you, Marines, no terrorist fanatic will ever ever, ever again murder our citizens and kick the bodies and burn them and hang the charred sticks from a Fallujah bridge. That will never again be–and so Fallujah will go down in history with Iwo Jima and the many other days of battle on which our Marines and our other brave military men and women defended their country and ours and their freedoms and ours. What a great day to celebrate.
I don’t have the words to express my feelings, but Shakespeare did. So I’ve taken these lines from “Henry V,” Act IV, Scene III, posted today in Peggy Noonan’s column for the Wall Street Journal. She’s using them to writing about President Bush’s victory last week. I’m using them to write about yesterday’s victory. They speak for themselves:
This day is call’d the feast of Crispian:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbors.
And say, “These wounds I had on Crispin’s day.”
Old men forget; yet all shall be forget,
But he’ll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words,
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember’d.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap while any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.
This Veterans’ Day is yours, band of brothers.