Prayer for Peace, Memorial Day, 2020

( printed page 31931) Proclamation 10040 of May 21, 2020 Prayer for Peace, Memorial Day, 2020 A Proclamation Since the first shots fired in the Revolutionary War, Americans have answered the call to duty and given their lives in service to our Nation and its sacred founding ideals. As we pay tribute to the lives and legacies of these patriots on Memorial Day, we also remember that they sacrificed to create a better, more peaceful future for our Nation and the world. We recommit to realizing that vision, honoring the service of so many who have placed love of country above all else. As Americans, we will always defend our freedom and our liberty. When those principles are threatened, we will respond with uncompromising force and unparalleled vigor. Generation after generation, our country's finest have defended our Republic with honor and distinction. Memorials, monuments, and rows of white crosses and stars in places close to home like Arlington, Virginia and Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, as well as far-flung battlefields in places like Flanders Field in Belgium and Busan in Korea, will forever memorialize their heroic actions, standing as solemn testaments to the price of freedom. We will never take for granted the blood shed by these gallant men and women, as we are forever indebted to them and their families. This year marks the 75th anniversary of the Allied victories over Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in World War II. As we commemorate these seminal events, we also remember the tremendous cost at which these victories came. More than 400,000 souls of the Greatest Generation perished during this titanic struggle to liberate the world from tyranny. In his address to the Nation on Japan's surrender, President Truman's words remind us all of our enduring obligation to these patriots for their sacrifice: “It is our responsibility—ours the living—to see to it that this victory shall be a monument worthy of the dead who died to win it.” As we pau…