Lincoln's message applies today, Ridge says in Gettysburg speech

GETTYSBURG, Pa. (AP) -- The ideals of democracy and freedom that Abraham Lincoln emphasized in his Gettysburg Address 140 years ago are the same principles that American soldiers are defending in the war on terror, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said Wednesday.
"Lincoln's powerful message still applies today," Ridge told about 800 people gathered in Christ Chapel at Gettysburg College for the annual commemoration of Lincoln's speech at what is now Gettysburg National Cemetery.
Ridge said the cemetery symbolizes the "courage and sacrifice" of the men and women who died throughout the nation's wars.
"When you honor one fallen soldier or a group of fallen soldiers at any place, at any time, by inference you honor hundreds of thousands of American patriots," he said.
Ridge noted that in the Battle of Gettysburg, the bloodiest of the Civil War, more than 45,000 soldiers were killed or injured. The battle in south-central Pennsylvania was a turning point in the war that thwarted Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's last major effort to take the fighting from Virginia into the North.
"Freedom does not come without a fight, without a price to be paid," Ridge said. "Never, never was that more true than in the Civil War. It didn't matter which uniform they wore ... all of them were Americans."
Lincoln delivered his brief but eloquent speech on Nov. 19, 1863, at the dedication of a cemetery for Union soldiers who died in the three-day battle in July of that year.