Help Memorialize WWII Vets

There are less than 1% of our World War Two (WWII) veterans left - and we will lose the last of our remaining heroes over the next 5 years.

In 2003, a poem was written in tribute to our WWII veterans to thank them for fighting and for preserving our way of life - for if we had lost WWII, we would have lost not only our freedoms but our minorities, our infirm, our physically and mentally challenged and many of our religious groups would have been subjected to persecution or extermination. We owe our WWII vets not only our way of life but our very lives.

The poem was called "Before You Go", and after it was set to music and placed on the Internet together with an accompanying pictorial, it spread worldwide by rampid viral dissemination - reaching more than 8 million people in the first 6 months and played as often as 50,000 times a day. By 2013, it was estimated to have been played tens of millions of times.

Now we must begin to thank our WWII veterans in memoriam. To preserve our thanks for generations to come, the poem  "Before You Go" has been altered to be expressed in the past tense, and renamed "In Endless Gratitude". These words, which have been called the greatest poem written to The Greatest Generation, and which have meant so much to so many people, will now be available on beautiful bronze and aluminum plaques to be placed at cemeteries, tribute sites, battle sites and museums. 

Our goal is to raise enough money to be able to produce and donate the first of these memorial plaques to the National WWII Museum in New Orleans.  Costs have been estimated to include production of the first casting, the first plaque itself in bronze (48" X 72") , shipping and installation.  Any funds donated via Go Fund Me in excess of the final costs (if less than $45,000.00) will be applied to the next plaque ordered by a tribute or battle site, museum or memorial site.

 In Endless Gratitude

Quietly, they all turned gray
They did their job - they saved our way
Our life and freedom they preserved
We thanked them less than they deserved

They never boasted, bragged, or asked
For adulation for their past
They did the job they knew was right
And quietly, they cried at night

For bodies maimed and comrades lost
For sights beyond our furthest thoughts
For what they’d lived and felt and seen
For what the cost of freedom means

They left us blessed with every breath
That cost them arms and legs and death
They won the worst and greatest war
We owed them more, we owe them more

To thank them for their wondrous feats
For open speech and quiet streets
For worship as we choose to pray
For preservation of our way

 In endless gratitude to show
That in their silence we’d still know
What they accomplished and what they did
For who we are and how we live

And so with love from wives and sons
And daughters - for a job well done
From kids who've never seen a tank
We give them thanks, we give them thanks

 For homes and jobs and baseball games
For many colors many names
They saved our lives and we're still free
From shining sea to shining sea

 Thank you,
Thank you
Thank you - rest in peace

© Copyright Sam Bierstock




Either of these designs may be selected - or produced with customized images according to the preferences of the recipient. For more information about these memorial plaques, and to hear the song "Before You Go, please visit  www.inendlessgratitude.com

Please help us donate our first plaque in tribute to those to whom we owe everything we have to the National WWII Museum