A Time to Remember
This Monday, we Americans will take time to remember the men and women who died in military
service to the United States. Memorial Day honors those who made the ultimate sacrifice, who gave, as
Abraham Lincoln said, “that last full measure of devotion.”
Lincoln used that phrase in his Gettysburg Address, when he dedicated a cemetery to the Union soldiers
who died at Gettysburg. After the Civil War, the organization of Union veterans known as the Grand
Army of the Republic (GAR) called for May 30 to be set aside as a day when communities across the
country decorated and beautified the graves of their veterans. Originally called Decoration Day, it was
the GAR’s goal to turn a springtime ritual that was carried out in individual communities into a national
day of remembrance.
The commander of the GAR, General John Logan, called for Americans to “guard their graves with sacred
vigilance” and to keep the gravesites beautiful and peaceful. “If other eyes grow dull, other hands slack,
and other hearts cold in the solemn trust” he said, “ours shall keep it well as long as the light and
warmth of life remain to us.”
Our country has a special place in the world, and our men and women in uniform are called on to make
sacrifices like no other nation. It is a burden we bear for our own freedom and for the values that define
us as a people. At ManTech, we are privileged to help the Armed Forces carry that burden, and we try to
keep them safe from harm.
When our service members fall in that service, it is our duty and our honor to remember them—to take
time out from picnics and ball games and out-of-town trips to remember what this day is for. To help us
do this, President Clinton established the “National Moment of Remembrance,” which asks all of us to
pause from whatever we are doing at 3:00 p.m. wherever we are on Memorial Day to voluntarily and
informally observe in our own way a moment of remembrance and respect, perhaps a moment of
silence and reflection.
That is what we plan to do, and we hope all of you will as well. Please take some time, as you relax with
family and friends, to remember that we have this weekend and this leisure thanks to the many
Americans whose lives were taken in their prime, but who now rest in peace.
All the best,
George J. Pedersen, Chairman & CEO
ManTech International Corporation
Kevin M. Phillips, President & COO
ManTech International Corporation