Navajo Heroes

During the American Civil War, President Lincoln had a strapping athletic young man as his secretary. In those days before office machinery, such a man would literally be pushing a pen or pencil.

This particular one was not happy about it. He wanted to get out where the action was on the battlefield. He was quite willing to die, if necessary. So he kept complaining to Lincoln about the women’s work he was doing, when he could be in uniform confronting the enemy.

After hearing this usual complaint one day, Lincoln stared at him, rubbed his hands in his beard and said in his philosophical way, “Young man, as I see it, you are quite willing to die for your country, but you are not willing to live or it.”

Martyrs (just a Greek word for witnesses) give their lives by dying or by living.