[VAcourier] Jefferson Davis Birthday Celebration at Arlington National Cemetery

[Virginia Division SCV Communication List]

Friends, Southerners, Compatriots,
*
Please don't forget to mark your calendars! 

We are less than two weeks away from the 200th birthday celebration of 
President Jefferson Davis to be held at Arlington National Cemetery.  *

In June of 1900, the Congress of the United States approved a section of 
land to be dedicated as a Confederate burial ground within Arlington 
National Cemetery.  Fourteen years later, on the 106th birthday of 
Confederate President Jefferson Davis, the United Daughters of the 
Confederacy and President Woodrow Wilson unveiled a more than thirty-two 
foot statue to honor the 482 Confederate soldiers buried beneath these 
grounds.  This bronze and polished granite monument was designed and 
sculpted by Confederate veteran Moses Ezekiel. 

Following in that tradition, on Sunday, June the 8th, at three o'clock, 
the Confederate Memorial Committee of the District of Columbia and the 
Jefferson Davis Camp #305, Sons of Confederate Veterans, will gather for 
the annual memorial ceremony at this famed Confederate shrine at Jackson 
Circle in Arlington National Cemetery.

This indeed is a special year, as we celebrate the 200th birthday of 
Jefferson Finis Davis.  Although words alone cannot serve to properly 
recognize this hero of the South, our first President, one inscription 
on the Confederate monument comes close to describing the character of 
the man we choose to honor:

/Not for fame or reward/
/Not for place or for rank/
/Not lured by ambition/
/Or goaded by necessity/
/But in simple obedience to duty/
/as they understood it/
/these men suffered all/
/sacrificed all/
/dared all -- and died./

This year's keynote speaker will be Mr. Thomas Moore, author of "The 
Hunt for Confederate Gold."  Mr. Moore, originally from South Carolina, 
lives and writes in Alexandria, Virginia.  Prior to his literary career, 
Mr. Moore was a leader in Washington's defense and international 
security community. He served two years in the Pentagon during the 
Reagan Administration and five years in the U.S. Senate, including the 
Professional Staff of the Senate Armed Services Committee under Chairman 
Strom Thurmond.  From 1995 to 1998 he was director of defense and 
foreign policy at The Heritage Foundation. Moore is a 1970 graduate of 
The Citadel; he attended the University of Grenoble, France under a 
French Government Scholarship, and earned a Master of Arts Degree from 
Georgetown University in Washington, DC.

For more information, please see the attached invitation for this year's 
event, and the Resolution of the Sons of Confederate Veterans 
commemorating 2008 as the "Year of Davis."

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