Ely All Veterans Memorial dedication address delivered by post historian Rob Smith on July 4, 2025.

“We gather here today to dedicate this monument to the veterans of Ely — those living and those who have passed, those who served in times of war and times of peace.

This monument was made possible through the generous gifts and donations of the people of Ely. It stands as a lasting tribute to the burdens our veterans have borne and the hardships they have endured — sacrifices that must never be forgotten.

I’d like to reflect on another dedication that took place 162 years ago. On November 19, 1863, four months after a great and terrible battle was fought near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, in the midst of the still raging Civil War — President Abraham Lincoln stood on that battlefield to say a few words honoring those who had fallen. I would like to read his familiar words in full:

‘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 battle-field 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 can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not 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 these 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.’

We gather here today for a similar purpose.

While we come to dedicate a monument of stone, our greater purpose is to honor the veterans of Ely — those who answered every call, endured every burden, and bore every cost to defend and preserve this free and undivided republic.

May this monument stand as a daily reminder of their sacrifices and that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. Let it call us to remember that the torch of liberty, once carried by Ely’s veterans, is now passed to us.

They served a cause rooted in the self-evident truth that all people are created equal. It is now our duty to live up to that principle — and to ensure that their sacrifices, like those remembered at Gettysburg, shall not be forgotten.

I invite each of you to resolve here today that Ely’s veterans shall not have served in vain and that this nation, under God, shall have a renewed birth of freedom and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”