Memorial Day

Two veterans spoke today in Sacrament Meeting.  Sister Loretta Duncan and Norman White.  

Brother White started his talk by reading the poem written by John Gillespie Magee Jr. 

during World War II:

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
 And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
 Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
 of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
 You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
 High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
 I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
 My eager craft through footless halls of air....

 Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
 I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace.
 Where never lark, or even eagle flew —
 And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
 The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
 - Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

Magee was actually an American but he joined the Royal Canadian Air Force before the US entered the war (born in China to missionaries - father American and mother British).  John Gillespie Magee, Jr. (9 June 1922 – 11 December 1941)  He died in a mid-air collision over Britain during a training flight. Both pilots died.  

I remember reading his poems in school along with ones that Rupert Brooke.

Brother White talked about his own career in the US Air Force.  He joked that he had been shot at many times but fortunately had never been hit.  I think he served for two years in Vietnam.  He spoke not just about the price of Freedom but about the Founding Fathers and the revelation that Wilfred Woodruff that they wished to be baptized.  

“It was to [President Wilford Woodruff] that the founders of the American nation appeared in the St. George Temple, seeking to have the temple ordinances performed for them. That was very unusual, brethren, and those kinds of miracles and visions and revelations were rather unusual, as you would know. These men of the American Constitution had lived in a day when the gospel was not upon the earth, but they were upright, good men who were entitled to all of the blessings which come to us. (Spencer W. Kimball, ”Preparing for Service in the Church” 47)

Of course, he expressed gratitude to all of those who have contributed to the blessings of freedom that we take so much for granted.  

Sister Duncan was a WAC .  She met her husband while in the military.  They lived in France and several other countries while he was in the military.  

The High Priests sang page 335 Brightly Beams Our Father's Mercy.  It was so appropriate and so beautifully sung.  

Brightly Beams Our Our Father’s Mercy(Men’s Choir) 

“335: Brightly Beams Our Father’s Mercy: (Men’s Choir),” Hymns of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, no. 335

Fervently

1. Brightly beams our Father’s mercy
From his lighthouse evermore,
But to us he gives the keeping
Of the lights along the shore.

[Chorus]

Let the lower lights be burning;
Send a gleam across the wave.
Some poor fainting, struggling seaman
You may rescue, you may save.

2. Dark the night of sin has settled;

Loud the angry billows roar.
Eager eyes are watching, longing,
For the lights along the shore.

3. Trim your feeble lamp, my brother;
Some poor sailor, tempest-tossed,
Trying now to make the harbor,
In the darkness may be lost.

Text and music: Philip Paul Bliss, 1838–1876

Doctrine and Covenants 18:10–16

1 John 2:10

^ Back to top

It was a good program today.  I am so grateful for family members past and present who have 

been willing to serve and to defend our nation. Thank you especially to Steve and Will. 

I love you both and am proud of you.  

I just learned from my sister Margaret that at my brother Ted's funeral Magee's poem was read.  Ted died when the small aircraft 

he was piloting crashed on  February 7, 1972.