A Moment

An email Jeff sent out to the MXenergy team for Memorial Day 2009:

Friends and Colleagues,

I wonder if you would take a moment with me to remember the reason we enjoyed a welcome three day weekend.

It would be enough if we were taking a breather after a long and arduous year. It would be enough if we were commemorating the traditional start of summer, with barbecues and picnics and gatherings with friends and family.

It would be enough if we were simply to be taking time for ourselves, a rare treat in today's Type A culture.

But there is more. 141 years ago President Andrew Johnson declared the last Monday in May as a day of remembrance for those soldiers who fought in the American Civil War to preserve the Union.

Referring to the slain soldiers, the President said: "Let us, then, at the time appointed, gather around their sacred remains, and garland the passionless mounds above them with choices flowers of springtime. Let us raise above them the dear old flag they saved."

The commemoration was later expanded to cover all soldiers in all the country's conflicts. But its origins in the Civil War should not be forgotten. For the Civil War was fought and won over universal principals of deep significance to all nationalities: freedom from slavery and bondage, freedom to work and pursue one's dreams, freedom to enjoy the privileges that are the birthright of all men and women.

When Leo Tolstoy, the great Russian writer, was travelling in the Northern Caucasus in 1908, he was the guest of a local tribal chief. His host asked Tolstoy to tell stories about famous men in history. Tolstoy obliged, talking about Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Frederick the Great and Napoleon.

When he finished the chief said to him: "But you have not told us a syllable about the greatest general and greatest ruler of the world.... His name was Lincoln."

As Tolstoy put it, Washington was a typical American and Napoleon a typical Frenchman but Lincoln "was a humanitariam as broad as the world. He was bigger than his country." Lincoln was a symbol and the United States an ideal that all peoples, everywhere, could appreciate.

Today we remember those who, like Lincoln, fought for liberty in every age and in every way.

MXenergy is a remarkable family. We represent many nationalities, political leanings, and feelings about the necessity of war. Nevertheless, I ask us all to pause a moment to honor those nameless dead.

They are mostly young. They have often been forgotten by all but their loved ones. But they are all our heroes: Men and women who lost their lives so that we might enjoy a peaceful weekend.