The Spirit Of Liberty

The Spirit of Liberty commemorates all Veterans for personal sacrifices made in their efforts to insure freedom and liberty for all people. It is a poignant reminder of both the value and cost of freedom.

The Spirit of Liberty is embodied by our nation’s symbol, the Bald Eagle, as it majestically emerges out of the clutches of the raging flames that depict the tumultuous and destructive nature of war. Much like the immortal image of the “Phoenix” rising out of the ashes, the Spirit of Liberty expresses America’s commitment to protecting the inalienable rights and liberties of humanity.

As we look to the future, it is appropriate to remember the prophetic words of President John F. Kennedy beckoning tomorrow’s generations to defend the cause of liberty:

“Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” Inaugural address January 20, 1961
 

We are arrayed to meet a common foe… Whether it is right to reduce theses people to submission is not a question for a soldier to decide. Our oaths of allegiance know neither race, color, nor nation. -M.W. Saddler, 25th Infantry, Philippines 1899-

No one knows how long sixty seconds are nor how much time can be crowded into an hour, nor what is meant by “leaden wings” unless he has been under the fire of a desperate battle, holding on, as it were by his teeth, hour after hour, minute by minute, waiting for a turning or praying that the great red sun, blazing and motionless overhead, would go down.

-Lieutenant Henry Kyd Douglas Civil War-

To be sent to the front at that time would have been murder but we were all willing to go. -American Private arriving in Paris September 1917-

I want to tell you… so that you can know and appreciate and forever be humbly grateful to those both dead and alive who did it for you. -Ernie Pyle Normandy Beach France June 12 1944-
 

All gave some
Some gave all
-Anonymous-

We have to remember that in the future we will want to keep before our children what this war was really like. It is so easy to forget and then for the younger generation, heroism and the glamour remain, while the dirt, the hardships, the horror of death, and the sorrow fade somewhat from their consciousness. -Eleanor Roosevelt-

Ashore, facing us, were more enemy troops than we had in assault waves. The advantages were all theirs, the disadvantages all ours… A one-hundred foot bluff a couple of hundred yards back from the beach had great concrete gun emplacements built right into the hilltop… This was what was on the shore. But our men had to go through a maze nearly as deadly as this before… Underwater obstacles were terrific… masses of those great six-prong spiders made of railroad iron and standing shoulder-high… huge logs buried in the sand, pointing upward and outward… just below the water. Attached to these logs were mines… floating mines offshore, land mines buried in the sand on the beach… and more mines… in the tall grass beyond the sand. And the enemy had four men on shore for every three men we had approaching shore. And yet we got on. -Ernie Pyle Normandy Beach, France June 1944-

They never gave an inch… They died right in their foxholes. -1st Infantry Division General North African Theater, 1942-
 

Duty, honor, country. Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be. They are your rally point to build courage when courage seems to fail, to regain faith when there seems to be little cause for faith, to create hope when hope becomes forlorn. General Douglas MacArthur March 12 1962

I don’t like being over here, but I am doing a job that must be done – I am fighting an inevitable enemy that must be fought now or later… I am fighting to protect and maintain what I believe in and what I want to live in – a democratic society. If I am killed while carrying out this mission, I want no one to cry or mourn for me. I want people to hold their heads high and be proud of the job I’ve done. Richard Marks, 19 A soldier who wrote this shortly before being killed in action. Vietnam War

I shall never forget the horrible fire of our mortars… going with dreadful certainty and bursting with sepulchral tones often in the center of private dwellings – it was awful. I shudder to think of it. Colonel Ethan Hitchcock, US Army Veracruz Mexico Mexican War March 1847