Abraham Lincoln's Birthday: A Rembrance

Today is Abraham Lincoln's birthday. To many, myself included, he's our favorite president.

I've read most of the books written about him just because I wanted to learn more about him.

Lincoln was a very compassionate man and president. He used to get on his horse at the White House and visit the wounded soldier's being treated in the tent hospitals over in Virginia. He was in anguish over the pain suffered by the soldiers and the thousands of families both Unionists and Confederates. He just want the bloody war to be over and for America to be whole again.

But did you know that Abraham Lincoln is responsible for much of the legacy of America's Veteran's Administration? Our national veteran's cemeteries, our soldier's homes, the C & P system (compensation and pension) and health care which in time became America's Department of Veteran's Affairs hospitals and outpatient clinics located all over the U.S., it's territories and the Philippines are because of President Lincoln and his administration.

But President Lincoln was responsible for one more thing, the VA Motto:

"To care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan."

When Lincoln took the oath of office for his second term on March 4, 1865, our UN-united United States was in the last bloody battles of the war. In the conclusion of his second inaugural speech, Lincoln said, "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 and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations."

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PRESIDENT ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 16Th President of the United States of America