Memorial Day is once again upon us. Many people will be firing up the barbeque pits for celebratory cookouts. Many others will be traveling to the beach or finishing up their long weekend and preparing for the long ride home. Still others will be marching in parades, visiting the graves of fallen fighters from all wars, laying wreaths of remembrance, and/or saying prayers for the millions of heroes who gave their lives so that we may live in liberty.

One of the first remembrances of our fallen heroes was given in President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, November 19, 1863:

“Fourscore 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 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.”

It is important to remember that all heroes of war are not just those who lose their lives, their limbs, or their minds. Many heroes are men and women of simple backgrounds, people who live simple lives that are often under prolonged duress, but who rise above everything to serve their nation, their fellow-man, and in the end, to serve themselves and their posterity. One such man is a former slave who fought to become a free man and having done so, joined the Union Navy and fought the Confederacy so that all men could live free and enjoy the bounty of liberty. That man was William B. Gould and his exploits are detailed in a book written by his great-grandson, William B. Gould IV.

The elder William B. Gould eventually moved to Massachusetts. He married a former slave living in Nantucket, MA. Eventually they settled on Milton Street, Dedham, MA where he helped build St. Mary’s Church and the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd in Oakdale Square.

William B. Gould IV’s book about his great-grandfather is informative, entertaining and poignant. One reviewer wrote:

“[Diary of a Contraband provides] modern readers with vivid insight into the life and thought of a man who overcame the degradations of slavery, actively sought his own freedom and fought to make it permanent, and in the end forged a new life as a full citizen . . . .An unusual work, [it is] one of only three wartime diaries kept by black sailors.”—Library Journal

If I’ve piqued your interest in this gentleman, one of millions of American Heroes that I could have honored today, and you would like to read more; you can find his story here

Please try to take the time to reflect on the history of this nation and those who were willing to dedicate or sacrifice their lives so that all of us today can have better lives in liberty than they inherited. If you see a military man or woman, especially today, take a moment to thank them for their service and the many sacrifices they make every day because the care so much about us and the nation they serve.