HR0819 103RD GENERAL ASSEMBLY

HR0819 LRB103 40883 JDS 73842 r

HOUSE RESOLUTION

WHEREAS, In accordance with the established tradition of the Illinois House of Representatives, it is fitting that we honor our brothers and sisters who have given their lives in service to our country as the guardians of our long-held freedoms; and

WHEREAS, To honor those brave souls who were sacrificed long ago or to pay tribute to the those brave men and women of today who have continued that fight for freedom, no better words have been written than the Gettysburg Address; let us now recite those words so humbly said by our 16th President, Abraham Lincoln: "Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from those honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion, that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."; and

WHEREAS, Those words from long ago still speak to the sacrifice of the brave men and women whom we now honor; it is altogether fitting and appropriate that we, with heavy hearts, again accept the honor of reading the roll call of those American Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines from the State of Illinois who have made the ultimate sacrifice in the years since the previous tribute; therefore, be it

RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE ONE HUNDRED THIRD GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that a copy of this resolution be presented to the families of the fallen heroes honored on May 22, 2024.