The North Carolina Monument at Gettysburg honors our state's 14,147 soldiers who fought there in 1863. Close to 6,000 North Carolinians lost their lives in 3 days at Gettysburg, over 1/4 of all Confederate casualties.
To date, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have claimed nearly 5,800 American lives.
Does it matter how many die? Civil War numbers boggle the mind. Iraq and Afghanistan numbers, in comparison, seem like mere skirmishes. Many of us don't know anyone who's been killed this time around; I doubt if many southerners could say the same in 1863.
The dead, no matter how many they are, ask little of us. We, in turn, pay almost no attention to them. Perhaps on this Veteran's Day we can be reminded of the simple request made clear by this monument: May "[our] valorous deeds [be] enshrined in the hearts of men long after these transient memorials have crumbled into dust."
No comments:
Post a Comment