Monday, April 9, 2012

Salutation #115

Today is Araw ng Kagitingan.



(Araw ng Kagitingan 2012)

Today
we remember
(1) the universal ideals of the noble military,
(2) the virtues of the person of the soldier,
and (3) the common peace that informs the spirit
of all national military remembrances.

Today
we remember these
specifically as it pertains
to the one Filipino profession of arms
that we may each - as citizens to each other -
recall to mind and heart
the timeless values
that make the institution of our AFP
truly worthy of its own distinction
as a defender of our nation 
and of all nations.

Today 
we remember
the sacred friendships of nations;
those eternal bonds of brotherhood
forged through a common experience
of the sufferings and the horrors of war.

Today 
we remember
the friendship between our nation
and the one American nation -
faithful in and of itself,
able to comfort and preserve,
in times of peace and in times of war
if we remain faithful to its keeping.

Today
we remember
friendships that we as one nation
- ever must carefully and diligently seek -
in every age and in every generation
being those belongings that serve
to call all nations ever nearer together;

those friendships that must exist
between our nation
and all other kindred nations
of our one, great family of nations -

that we may, as one people, soon learn
to truly know and understand
what every nation does ultimately seek
through the bearing of these arms -

Eternity. Virtue. Humanity. Universality.

Peace.
---<--@

The Alibata for "Ka" in AFP symbology means "Kagitingan" or "Valor".


VALOR is a kind of mastery, not of fear, but of the self. 

It is an uncertain virtue. For none is sure to possess it save for when one becomes possessed by it in the face of great suffering and terrible danger.  
---<--@

Courage goes from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.

- Sir Winston Churchill
---<--@

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear: not absence of fear. 

Except a creature be part coward it is not a compliment to say it is brave. 

- Mark Twain 
---<--@

Perfect valour consists in doing without witnesses that which we would be capable of doing before everyone. 

- François Duc de La Rochefoucauld 
---<--@

Conquest is the missionary of valor, and the hard impact of military virtues beats meanness out of the world. 

- Walter Bagehot
---<--@