At the End of Pearl Harbor Day ...

A poem, found both in our hymnal, Singing the Living Tradition, and in Bless All Who Serve: Sources of Hope, Courage and Faith for Military Personnel and Their Families:

The Young dead soldiers do not speak.
Nevertheless, the are heard in the still houses: who has not heard them?
They have a silence that speaks for them at night and when the clock counts.
They say: We were young. We have died. Remember us.
They say: We have done what we could but until it is finished it is not done.
They say: We have given our lives but until it is finished no one can know what our lives
         gave.
They say: Our deaths are not ours; they are yours; they will mean what you make them.
They say: Whether our lives and our deaths were for peace and a new hope or for
         nothing we cannot say; it is you who must say this.
They say: We leave you our deaths. Give them their meaning.
We were young, they say. We have died. Remember us.

                                               -- Archibald MacLeish (1892-1983)