“Shall Not Perish”

Photo courtesy United States Navy

There are precious few ideas in life, when acted upon, seem thoroughly natural, even simplistic, to the point of eliciting a response in ourselves like, “Why didn't we think of that sooner?”. “Adopting” the USS Abraham Lincoln has been one such act; the reason now being all too evident; namely, the Sailors of Abe have already set the standard. But it didn't occur until we watched the recent developments from the comfort of our homes and then came to realize that all of you were out there making it happen.

So if we, at “Friends of Abe”, are able to demonstrate a fraction of the loyalty, dedication and sacrifice to this endeavor as Abe's Sailors continually have, then our “team” is guaranteed success.

Friends of the USS Abraham Lincoln

“Oh that a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a Heaven for?”
...Robert Browning

Friends of the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72)
130 South Canal, Suite 9T • Chicago, IL 60606 • (312) 632-0000

“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.”

Abraham Lincoln
Cemetery Dedication Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
November 19, 1863

The only known photograph of President Lincoln at the Gettysburg Address.
(Courtesy Library of Congress and National Archives)