Memorial Day

There are two pieces of paper on my desk.

I keep them where I can see them for two very different reasons.

One is a litany of what happened on July 3 in the year 1863 outside a small town in Pennsylvania.

Six thousand Union soldiers formed a battle line over a distance of 300 yards supported by 122 cannon facing one mile of open ground and 152 Confederate cannon which opened fire at 1pm and sustained bombardment for two hours, a cannonade heard 84 miles away in Washington, DC.

Then 14,000 Confederate soldiers in a line almost one mile long advanced. It took them an estimated 20 minutes to reach the intervening Emmetsburg Road. They encountered and climbed over two five foot wooden fences.

As they approached to within one hundred yards, sometimes as close as thirty feet, Union artillerymen reloaded some twenty-five cannon with canister shot, even double canister each containing several dozen lead balls and fired.

One wooden fence timber received 268 bullet holes, the fence timber being three inches wide and eight feet long.

Total lapse time for what became known as Pickett’s Charge at the Battle of Gettysburg amounted to 50 minutes.

Union casualties number an estimated 2,500.

Confederate 6,800.

The other piece of paper on my desk is much smaller and records casualties of an ongoing and far more recent war. It is not a complete list by any means. It comes to me through the daily news. It is the partial list of those who have met violent deaths either in the line of duty of simply living their lives in our nation, our state, our city over the last few years. These are casualties and the casualties will continue to mount until the land of the brave and the home of the free “may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.” *

Eliza Fletcher, 34, Memphis TN

Officer Cassie Johnson, 28, Charleston WV

FBI Agent Laura Schwartzenberger, 43, Sunrise FL

Kenirra C. Fields, 31, mother of two, Madison WI

Carlos Lopez, 23, hit and run, Madison WI

Officer Kevin Apple, 52, Pea Ridge AR

James Lambert, 72, Philadelphia PA

Mohammed Anwarr, 66, food delivery driver, NYC

Doty Whitaker, 24, St. Louis MO

Beth Potter MD, 52, Madison WI

Robin Carre, 57, Madison WI

Natalie Wallace, 7, Chicago IL

Anis Scott, 11, Madison WI

Anthony Chung, 22, Madison WI

                                                                                                   *Abraham Lincoln