“With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow, and his orphan — to do all which may achieve a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations.”

- Abraham Lincoln, second inaugural address, March 4, 1865

This photograph of Lincoln delivering his second inaugural address is the only known photograph of Lincoln giving a speech. Lincoln stands in the center, with papers in his hand.

There is something I have trouble comprehending. Capitalism dictates that whoever takes the biggest financial risks, deserve the biggest rewards. And the worry now is that if executive pay is clamped down on, there will be a whole spate of people who will refuse to work if they are not rewarded according to what they feel their taking risks warrant.

If that is so, then how do we rationalize how small the rewards, much less simple repayment, are given to soldiers and veterans who put their lives (and consequently their families’ well-being) at risk so that the rest of us can enjoy freedom and a chance for capitalistic success.

A friend recently told me:

“The measure of a civilization is how it treats those who have hurt it, are hurting in it, and have sacrificed for it.”

I’m not here to rail against our post Geneva Convention torture of detainees nor about the health care problems of nearly all Americans that refuse to get solved. There are more than enough people at the Huffington Post and elsewhere to weigh in on those.

But I am here to say that it is not enough to honor the “all who gave some” servicemen and women with parades on Veterans Day and the “some who gave all” who gave their lives with ceremonies on Memorial Day. We need to repay their sacrifice with the resources they need and deserve to return to fulfilling civilian lives. And if they have died, we need to help their families.

It’s the least all of us can do.

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