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Memorial Day Reflection: A 50-Year Remembrance

May 25, 2020

By Anthony J. Lauinger, State chairman of Oklahomans For Life and vice president of National Right to Life. 

Editor’s note. National Right to Life Vice President Tony Lauinger and his brother Joe were classmates in the Georgetown University Class of 1967.  Joe was killed in combat in Vietnam on January 8th, 1970.  Tony spoke at a commemoration at Georgetown on the 50th anniversary of Joe’s death this past January. His words are a testimony to the beauty, value, and dignity of every human life.

One of the more realistic movies about Vietnam was based on a book with the poignant title, We Were Soldiers Once, and Young.  It seems so long ago, now – that period when so many in our class went off to join the military.  But when we think of those who died, it’s as if they are frozen in time.

In thinking about Joe, nothing has really changed over these 50 years since his death: not our love for him, our sense of loss, our pain at his absence…  In some ways, his presence among us is as strong and real today as it was then.  And just as he was in life, Joe continues to be a catalyst for bringing together those he loved – and who loved him – in friendship, fellowship, and love. 

One of the most meaningful things that can be said about someone is that she or he had a positive impact on others while passing through this life.  Your presence here tonight is testimony to Joe’s having had such an impact.

He touched so many lives during those brief, fleeting years when he was with us.  He continues to touch so many lives today…

Joe was born on July 5th, the day after Independence Day.  As it happened, Joe was home on leave for a few days before heading to Vietnam, and it was after Mass on the Fourth of July – where the recessional hymn that day was “America the Beautiful” –that Joe left home for the last time.

I once read a beautiful essay which concluded with these words:

“Few of us have earned the freedoms we enjoy; we’ve received them by bequest, as gifts of grace. The freedoms we celebrate on Independence Day were made possible by the sacrifices we commemorate on Memorial Day.  To the valiant few who paid the price, we owe an incalculable debt.”   

Last June, on the 75th anniversary of D-Day, I heard an interview with former Education Secretary Bill Bennett from the American cemetery at Normandy.  The cemetery there is one of many around the world where America’s honored dead have been laid to rest.  Secretary Bennett related a poignant bit of history:

“Thirteen years ago,” he said, “there was a conference in England.  A prominent European leader commented that, ‘This Iraq thing is just another effort to expand the American empire.’  A retired American General who was there heard the comment and responded: ‘We have sent many young men and women abroad to fight for the freedom of others.  The only land we have ever asked for in return was land to bury those who were not able to return home.’

By the world’s measure, we members of the Class of ‘67 are old, while Joe, and several others of our classmates, are forever young.  May we benefit from the wisdom of age and from God’s good grace to live out our lives in such a way that we might all one day be reunited forever in the loving arms of the Lord… 

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