NIAGARA FALLS —
While the foundations of the massive Niagara Falls Veterans Memorial monument are settling, and we await the quarrying and the polishing of the permanent Vermont granite upon which the names of those who have died for their country will be engraved, let us all take out a moment to understand that freedom is not free.
While it takes time to settle the concrete that forms the foundations of the monuments, though it can be as concrete, the form of freedom may never really settle.
As we grow and build a nation, those foundations are constantly being poured and perfected. As such, and as always, men and women have gone to the furthest of frontiers to defend those very foundations.
But the substance of patriots’ blood, sweat and tears “is” the concrete that they pour into those gulfs of misunderstanding that divide our world, and sometimes divide each other. Sadly, that is often forgotten. What they leave behind is sometimes too quickly dug up again, and the civility that once was established now crumbles far more quickly than the granite from which we make the monuments to their sacrifices. The hole that remains divides us from the safety and freedom that we desire for our children and ourselves; and is replaced by those who seek to pour the poison from the unlabeled bottles of their dominance into it.
The tyrants would have done so, too; had the names of millions of Americans and allies not been added to the rolls of our armed forces; and had not more than a thousand Niagarans, whose names will now be the first of those etched into the granite at Hyde Park, had stopped them. Many of them have given their lives to do so; many others have been surrounded by the death and darkness of warfare, and have survived that horrid taste of gunpowder, which had been flavored with human blood.
Others patriots have either supported them, or have marched upon the wall of deterrence that exists between peace and chaos.
While the monument is being built as a tribute to those who went away and did not return, also being built are additional monuments to those whose recognized valor, sometimes in jeopardizing, and often times in the sacrificing their own lives for the common good of their comrades at arms, have distinguished themselves as going above and beyond the call of duty.
And there are to be the monuments that are dedicated for those of us who did return from war; or who, by their service, otherwise have made it unnecessary for them to stare at an enemy through either a rifle or a radar scope, but nonetheless stood willing to do either.
Hopefully, that is the wall upon which most names will go. It will be those who either themselves or their families, friends, employers or others are grateful for their safe return, and are willing to sacrifice a small portion of their life’s earnings to honor and to long stand watch over the dedicated memories of those who have earned their monument by giving the full measure of the sacrifice of their very lives.
I ask — no, we ask — that you take a few moments of your day on Nov. 11 at 11 a.m. to honor those men and women who continue to fuel the empowering fires of freedom with their blood, sweat and tears, as they light the pathways for a better Niagara Falls, a better New York, a better America and a better world.
If, in that hour, you cannot join us near Pine Avenue and Robbins Drive at the Hyde Park monument, or join with any of the fine veterans and religious associations in the city, then upon the concrete of whatever settled foundation you find yourself, take a few moments of silence and quietly thank both God and the veteran for keeping you safe, wherever it is that the time may find you.
Thank you.
Ken Hamilton
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Freedom is not free — ask and honor a veteran
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