As I was going through an old LIFE magazine this morning, (June 12, 1944) I came across this prayer on the second page. I thought of our men and women overseas, including those who have given the Last Full Measure, and it seemed to fit today.
The Prayer is not credited that I could see, and was sponsored by Nash automobiles, and Kelvinator Refridgerators.
Here it is:
I'm going up front now.
And if you don't mind, before I go I'd like to talk to you.
I won't ask you to intercede for me on the battlefield. I won't ask you to make things soft for me when the going gets tough. I won't ask you to carry me. I'll take the bitter and the rough with the rest.
I ask only this...
If we must die, let us be worthy to die...
If we must fall, let out fall be not unnoticed and alone.
We know you understand...
And we know Joe's father and Pete's wife and Jack's brother and Bill's kids and Fred's girl and my mother understand...
But help the others back home understand, too.
Help them to understand how much devotion to their jobs mean to us...
Help them know that their thoughts, and prayers, and notes of encouragement allow us to move forward, when it would be easier to fall back.
Help them to understand that here in this hell the enemy is not a man but a devil... that if you sleep you sleep with your finger on the filed-down trigger of a tommy gun... that a sudden sound and the earth quakes and forests topple and hills fall and all of us live and walk in the fear of death...
Help them to understand that in a world where all we see and touch and hear is strange, a man must cling to his changeless things... his home... his country...his God...
Help them to understand we will never change our hearts and souls and minds about the things we are fighting for.
No. Out here we fight for the right to come back to our homes, our America, our way of life... for the right of all men to live and grow in a world where every man may keep forever free from hatred, greed and tyranny - his home ... and his country ... and his God.
Amen.