Seventy-nine years ago today 2,467 people paid the ultimate price in the event that would finally bring America fully into the Second World War. As I prepare to resume work on this mod I'd like to take a moment to reflect on what so many died for.
2020 has been a trying year for all of us and through adversity I hope that we've been able to learn valuable lessons from these trials that we can apply to our lives. We've seen civil liberties erode, nations gripped with fear and anger, and ideological divides both worsened and quelled.
Through time immemorial man has fought, killed, and died fighting for many things, attained some, lost others, and yet we haven't yet managed to win the war for our freedom. Man was not born to be a slave, toil under the yoke of a master, or fear his neighbor. This year we seemed to have forgotten that our lives are our own to lead and that in the pursuit of our own security we should never use our fear as justification to compel others to our way of thinking. As terrifying as it can sometimes be, we must trust in our fellow man that he is capable of operating under his own might and wisdom, and leave him to do so, as we should be left to do ourselves.
This Christmas season let us remember that what matters isn't what some politician, in some far-away capitol, thinks you should do. Nor should fears of death outweigh the desire for a full life, nor family be forsaken to desolation. Whatever you celebrate, may you do so surrounded by those you are loved by so you may see their smiling faces and feel their warm embrace, for tomorrow is promised to no one.
I'll leave you now in the good care of an excerpt from Ulysses and I look forward to posting news about further progress in the new year, when I will resume my work here.
Push off, and sitting well in order
Smite the sounding furrows; for my purpose holds to sail beyond the sunset,
And the baths of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, and see the great Achilles, whom we knew
Though much is taken, much abides;
And though we are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
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