Veterans Day Archives - Democratic Party of Georgia

Veterans Day is different from every other national holiday. We’re not remembering someone or something from long ago. Veterans Day honors the heroes who live among us. It is about remembering to say thank you. It is also a time to pay homage to the strength that makes America the greatest nation on earth.

Veterans embody the spirit of our nation. They offered themselves in service, willing to give their time, their comfort and potentially their lives for the benefit of our country and its goals.

Military service teaches veterans fundamental truths about life. Foremost among them is that it is not just about you. And combat is the ultimate teacher. Combat veterans know, in a way that few others do, the meaning of real selflessness – to be willing to give your life to save another.

Veterans carry this ethos of selfless service with them for the rest of their days. And when veterans return home, they help provide the steel spine that abides at the center of American communities.

The great leap achieved by our Founding Fathers was the belief that the heroism that exists in the heart of every soldier could also be found in the heart of every citizen. Our nation begins with the idea that each of us can and should think and act for ourselves, but none of us should think and act only for ourselves.

On this Veterans Day, as we say thank you to all who served and are serving our nation, let us also rededicate ourselves to the veterans’ example of service.

Thank you to all who served and who are serving, and to your families. God bless America.

Rep. Scott Holcomb

Scott Holcomb serves as the State Representative for District 81. A veteran, Scott served for six years in the Air National Guard and six years on active duty with the U.S. Army. He deployed overseas for Operations Joint Forge (Bosnia), Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan), and Iraqi Freedom.

Visit his website at votescottholcomb.com and follow him on Twitter at @RepScottHolcomb

President Lincoln wrote this letter expressing condolences to Mrs. Bixby, a widow who it was believed had lost five sons in the Civil War.

May all of our Veterans be remembered for the sacrifices that they have made for our country. We should hold dear the courage that these brave men and women have shown in service to our United States.

Executive Mansion, Washington, Nov. 21, 1864

Dear Madam,

I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant-General of Massachusetts, that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle.

I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save.

I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours, to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of Freedom.

Yours, very sincerely and respectfully,

Abraham Lincoln