In his 1863 address commemorating the battlefield at Gettysburg as a soldier’s national cemetery, President Abraham Lincoln implored his audience to increase devotion to the cause for which the “honored dead…gave the last full measure of devotion.” Memorial Day provides an opportunity to remember and honor those who’ve died in armed conflict not just as casualties, or even as heroes, but as living, breathing human beings who believed, hoped, feared, loved and, yes, sacrificed all. The full measure of their humanity comes across in letters they wrote home, especially in the last letters they lived to write. Let’s peer into some of these last letters home, and let’s ask ourselves: To what cause today could we, “the living,” increase our devotion if we truly wish to honor the “honored dead?”
