A Collect for Veteran’s Day

November 11, 2011

The Rev. Michael R. Kyle

“Lord God of our fathers and mothers.  God of Abraham and Sarah; Isaac and Rebecca; Jacob and Rachel.  Lord God of Moses, Miriam, Mary and Joseph…” -  Sojourners all looking for the Kingdom you promise, we come before you this night to remember those who have sojourned far and wide on behalf of these United States.  We come before you to praise you for the women and men who have served and now do serve in the armed forces of this nation.

They are remembered by their names:  Washington; Jackson; McClellan; Grant and Roosevelt; Pershing; Eisenhower; McCain; Powell; By Pitcher; and York and Murphy.  But also by Smith and Jones and Riley; Nadeo; and Garcia.

They journey before us from Concord and Plattsburg; from San Antonio, Shiloh, and San Juan.  From Flanders Fields; the Mekong Delta; Pork Chop Hill, from Omaha Beach; Haditha Dam and Willow Springs.

They have served on The Arizona; The Maine; The Cole. The Constitution, and the USS Missouri.

They have flown in Balloons; and Gliders; in P38s; and on the wings of the Stealth.

They have raised our flag and thereby our hopes at Vicksburg and New Orleans; in Viet Nam and Korea; in France and Italy; in Philadelphia; Great Lakes and on a hunk of rock named Iwo Jima.

So O Lord we ask your blessings upon what we do this night.  Our remembrances and thanksgivings, our tears, our smiles, our admiration.  And so also we ask your blessings upon all who have served from that first tattered farmer who stood with courage on a Massachusetts bridge; to my Parents’ Generation who held forth at Anzio and the Bulge; Pearl Harbor and Midway and who then came home with wonderful vision for their children; we ask your blessings upon them all.

To the Marine who just this minute stepped off the bus back at Pendleton from the dust and dirt and struggle for Afghanistan.

We ask your blessings upon them all- As we “…sing our songs of the Saints of God, patient and brave and true…”

Amen.