Memorial Day 2020

Christopher Bryant

Private First Class
A CO, 1ST BN, 7TH MARINES, 1ST MARDIV, III MAF
United States Marine Corps
Mangum, Oklahoma
November 22, 1948 to May 17, 1968
CHRISTOPHER BRYANT is on the Wall at Panel 61E, Line 24

My uncle's school records

 Letter's from the President and Governor.

Brass that I picked up after they finished the service.

 

Letters home, and a rubbing from the Traveling Wall, late 1980's

 

His Class A cover

 

My kin as I remember them... 

I still think of you, Steve.  I remember.

Memorial Day - Edgar A. Guest

The finest tribute we can pay
          Unto our hero dead to-day,
          Is not a rose wreath, white and red,
          In memory of the blood they shed;
          It is to stand beside each mound,
          Each couch of consecrated ground,
          And pledge ourselves as warriors true
          Unto the work they died to do.

          Into God's valleys where they lie
          At rest, beneath the open sky,
          Triumphant now o'er every foe,
          As living tributes let us go.
          No wreath of rose or immortelles
          Or spoken word or tolling bells
          Will do to-day, unless we give
          Our pledge that liberty shall live.

          Our hearts must be the roses red
          We place above our hero dead;
          To-day beside their graves we must
          Renew allegiance to their trust;
          Must bare our heads and humbly say
          We hold the Flag as dear as they,
          And stand, as once they stood, to die
          To keep the Stars and Stripes on high.

          The finest tribute we can pay
          Unto our hero dead to-day
          Is not of speech or roses red,
          But living, throbbing hearts instead,
          That shall renew the pledge they sealed
          With death upon the battlefield:
          That freedom's flag shall bear no stain
          And free men wear no tyrant's chain.