I would like to preface the invocation for this morning's ceremony with a short reading from a report by a man you may have known or remember .... a man named Chaplain Allen Newman, former Battalion Chaplain of the 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines. This is an excerpt from his report, submitted after the battle for Outposts Vegas & Reno & Carson at Easter-time, March 1953.
      He wrote:

"With the coming of daylight, the flares and artillery shells stopped their ceaseless flow. Quiet became the early morning hour's song .... No one knew just what was going to happen .... Early Saturday afternoon, Dog Company started out to Vegas to assist in the fighting. Enemy artillery caught them in one of the valleys .... and they sustained 40 casualties. Returning to the lines again, Dog Company brought back the dead and wounded. The men worked frantically to bind up the injuries and evacuate the casualties. It all came so quickly and was such a surprise that most of the men still didn't realize what had happened. I walked around the groups of dazed men who still remained in Dog Company talking to most of them. Many were in a state of shock or stunned by the sudden attack which struck them ..... The first rays of sunshine brought Palm Sunday to Korea. No human choir was to sing for my men that day, only the chorus of enemy shells singing around them. No sermon telling of Jesus' entry in Jerusalem filled their hearts. But they were to feel the eternal presence of God as they crouched in trenches for hours during the nights and days ahead. No one had to ask them to pray. They did it naturally .... They wanted to live, just as I wanted to live. That was the last time I walked up Vegas hill where the "valley of the shadow of death" was a reality ...."

      Let us pray:

The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green  pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters. He restores my soul; He guides me in the paths of righteousness for His Name's sake.

And, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me. Thou doest prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; Thou hast annointed my head with oil; My cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

      AMEN.