May their memories be for a blessing[1]

[I] am but History's courier
  To bind the conquering years;
A battle-ray, through ages gray
  To light to deeds sublime,
And flash the lustre of this day
  Down all the aisles of Time!

— "Army Correspondent's Last Ride",[3] George Alfred Townsend, 1865. Excerpted on the National War Correspondents Memorial as "War Correspondent Ballad".[4]

Tyranny truly is a horror: an immense, endlessly bloody, endlessly painful, endlessly varied, endless crime against not humanity in the abstract but a lot of humans in the flesh. It is, as Orwell wrote, a jackboot forever stomping on a human face.

— "Who Would Choose Tyranny?", Michael Kelly, 2003.[5]


  1. ^ a b Honorifics for the dead in Judaism § Of blessed memory
  2. ^ Because of timezones and bureaucratic quirks, some sources say the 3rd, some the 4th; my family has always observed the 3rd, while this wiki says the 4th. Wikipedia, as is so often the case, is probably less wrong.
  3. ^ Townsend, George Alfred (1900) [1865-04-01]. "775. Army Correspondent's Last Ride". In Stedman, Edmund Clarence (ed.). An American Anthology, 1787-1900. Retrieved 2022-03-13.
  4. ^ "Antietam Battlefield Monuments: War Correspondents Memorial Arch". National Park Service. Archived from the original on 2013-06-06. Retrieved 2022-03-13.
  5. ^ Kelly, Michael (2003-02-26). "Who Would Choose Tyranny?". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2022-03-13.
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