Memorial Day 2025: “A More Perfect Union” Echoes of Abraham Lincoln’s Messages of Healing and Hope|
On this Memorial Day, I reflected on Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address — a few brief words spoken amid war, when the nation was torn and the cost in American lives was unbearable. He stood not to boast or to blame, but to bind the wounds and call us higher. And I wondered, if Lincoln were with us now, in another time of division and doubt, what might he say? Perhaps something like the words that follow. Or perhaps not. But surely something to remind us who we are, what we owe, and how we must endure — together
We gather on this Memorial Day not in mourning alone, but in memory — and in duty.
We remember those who gave their last full measure, not only for country, but for a cause greater than themselves: that government of the people, by the people, for the people might not perish from the earth.
From Lexington Green to the sands of Iwo Jima, from Antietam’s crimson soil to the streets of Fallujah, our fallen did not die for a party or a platform. They died for a promise — that this nation, under God, would endure, and that liberty and justice would be secured for all.
They died to preserve what our founders set forth in the Preamble — to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.
These are not distant ideals. They are the living mission of every citizen, in every generation.
On this day, we walk among graves that speak louder than any speech. They tell of sons and daughters who stepped forward while others stepped back—who gave their today so we could shape a better tomorrow.
Let us not dishonor them by turning on one another. Let us not betray their sacrifice by surrendering to division or trading truth for gain.
Let Memorial Day be more than remembrance. Let it be a day we stand shoulder to shoulder — not as rivals, but as fellow citizens, each entrusted with the next chapter of the American story.
This nation has weathered storms of war, division, and doubt — and still, it stands. Not because it is perfect, but because its people have always reached for something better. Today, we do so again.
Let us rise — not only to remember, but to rebuild. Not only to honor, but to unite. And not only to mourn the past, but to shape the future, together.
And may we, the living, prove worthy of the dead—by how we live, what we defend, and who we choose to be, as one people, still striving toward that more perfect Union.