[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 57 (Wednesday, March 29, 2023)]
[House]
[Pages H1539-H1540]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                 PRAYER

  The Chaplain, the Reverend Margaret Grun Kibben, offered the 
following prayer:
  Eternal God, on this 50th anniversary of the Vietnam war, we pray 
Your divine blessing on those veterans who left hearth and home to 
respond to the

[[Page H1540]]

call of our Nation. We give tribute to their faithfulness to the ideals 
of freedom and democracy, even when the winds of war blew with 
increasing uncertainty.
  We pray for those who, in the ambiguity of conflict, found themselves 
facing unimaginable ethical dilemmas and who are now left with 
indelible moral trauma. Bless those who yet tend to lingering physical 
and emotional injury. Give each of them peace when the nightmares 
overwhelm and the echoes of battle resound in their slumber.
  May all who returned unwelcomed find themselves received into Your 
warm embrace and upheld by Your loving and everlasting arms. In Your 
mercy, sanctify the lives of those who remain missing in action and 
preserve the memory of the ones who never made it home.
  Grant eternal rest to those comrades ever memorialized on granite 
walls and gravestones across the country. May they now know Your peace.
  Holy and merciful God, mend the wounds of war, both seen and unseen, 
individual and corporate--that as we commemorate this anniversary, we 
would acknowledge the cost of war and honor the value of peace.
  In the everlasting strength of Your name we pray. Amen.

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