As I listened to those songs the glee club, in memory's eye I could see thos e staggering columns of the First World War, bending under soggy packs, on many a weary march from dripping dusk to drizzling dawn, slogging ankle?deep through the mire of shell?shocked roads, to form grimly for the attack, blue?lipped, covered with sludge and mud, chilled by the wind and rain, driving home to their objective, and for many, to the judgment seat of God.
I do not know the dignity of their birth, but I do know the glory of their d eath.
They died unquestioning, uplaining, with faith in their hearts, and on t heir lips the hope that we would go on to victory.
Always, for them: Duty, Honor, Country; always their blood and sweat and tea rs, as we sought the way and the light and the truth.
And 20 years after, on the other side of the globe, again the filth of murky foxholes, the stench of ghostly trenches, the slime of dripping dugouts; those boiling suns of relentless heat, those tor*****al rains of devastating storms; t he loneliness and utter desolation of jungle trails; the bitterness of long sepa ration from those they loved and cherished; the deadly pestilence of tropical di sease; the horror of stricken areas of war; their resolute and determined defens e, their swift and sure attack, their indomitable purpose, theirplete and de cisive victory — always victory. Always through the bloody haze of their last r everberating shot, the vision of gaunt, ghas