I Survived the Gettysburg Address

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation,

• 27 years ago some people made a new country that brought us together

• 87 years ago some people made a new country that brought us together

• 27 years ago our relatives made a new country that brought us together

conceived in liberty,

• based on the idea of freedom

• born in a free country

• taken from a free country

and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

• and made sure the song was the same as all others

• and believed that all people are the same

• and written to make sure that everyone would get the same rights

Now we are engaged in a great civil war,

• Now we are fighting a war between the states

• Now we are planning a war

• No we are politely debating

testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.

• Testing if any country can survive forever

• Trying to see if we or any country who believes in that idea can continue to exist

We are met on a great battlefield of that war.

• People are coming to meet us here.

• We are standing on an important battlefield of that war.

• People are coming to fight with us here.

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.

• We have come to say that part of this field is holy because it is a final resting place for those who died here so that our country can continue to exist

• We have come here to create a place where soldiers can rest because they fought so hard for our country.

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.

• But in the bigger picture, we cannot make this place holy because the men who died here already did.

• But in the bigger picture we cannot build here because people died here and it would be disrespectful

• But in a larger sense, we should not honor people who fight in wars.

The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.

• The world doesn’t care about this place but the men who fought here will always remember.

• People won’t remember this ceremony but they will remember the men who fought and died 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.

• We need to dedicate this cemetery and make it look nice to honor these men.

• We who are still alive need to promise to continue to fight for the ideas that these men died for.