The ultimate sacrifice

Dear Editor:

More than 41 years ago, I met a resident of yours. He always talked about friends and relatives and your town and how much he missed it. I was with him the day he gave the ultimate sacrifice. He truly died a hero.

Please do not forget him and all the other veterans in that wonderful town. This young man’s name is Monroe Ward Cross. Sgt. Cross was my armored personnel carrier commander in Vietnam, and I was his machine gunner.

Here are some words I heard at the end of a show I was watching that I feel sums it up for Monroe’s family and friends and all veterans.

“Nothing except for the safe return of a beloved son can compensate you, or the thousands of other American families, who have suffered great loss in this tragic war. I might share with you some words which sustained me through long, dark nights of peril, loss, and heartache. And I quote: ‘I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you the only cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be your’s to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.’” – Abraham Lincoln.

Russell Anderson

Southbridge, Mass.