Siena College - Saga Yearbook (Loudonville, NY)

Page 6 text:

jorsitan et tjqaec As we prepare this volume, a memorial to our days at Siena, our thoughts are with the men of our Class and our college who are engaged in the armed services of the nation. It cannot be otherwise Most of us shall soon join them. We are proud of the number and the worth of these men who have left behind their college days, to take on them- selves the duty of defense of their country. Youth and jesting proverbially go hand in hand. School days are care-free and, in a land where education is the privilege of the many, our pursuit of learning has not been marked too deeply by pain. Life and Wisdom will etch deeper, we know, with the mordant acid of Experience. But for all their joy, the days of these men at Siena gave them their preparation for life. In these haills they heard again and again that, while life is rich with promises, it is a privilege that bears with it the duty to uphold all those things which make life worth living. Here they, and we, have learned the lessons of the Love of God and of our

Page 5 text:

$86560 tion T0 the 111011 of Sicna now in the armed forces. To those who left the peaceful wavs of books to take on the sterner lessons of war, who with the quiet heroism of those who love ideals have turned to defend thc nation we Iovct we, the 012153 of ,43, dedicate this volume in humble tribute to their courage and the high spirit of their resolve.

Page 7 text:

01mm Went inisse ya vahit fellowmen, the duty of love and sacrifice for country. And thus in an age that has scoHed at patriotism and belief, where the prevailing fashion has been a careless laugh for tradition, we come with ideals and beliefs. We are proud of them, and anxious to proclaim them. The line that separates youth from manhood is always difficult to dehne, and never more difficult than today, when the happenings of a few minutes may thrust us Closer to the realities of life-and cleath-than years of a peaceful era would sum up for us. We face the future seriously, but without fear. College men of another day may look on us as overly-sentimental here, and reveling in tenuous ideals. But to the history books of the, future we leave the arguments on the futility of the war which we under- take without the full awareness of the causes that later students will define. Let scholars of the future agree on the vast fullness of the battle, on the tactical errors of generals, and on the wasted lives expended to hold him a Huid battle line. In these pages we record a tribute to the few of the vast number of those engaged whom we have known. Nor can we be blamed, for the hands we grasped in casual goodbyes were the hands of our friends. They are the ones woven into the pattern of our living, the ones with whom we have laughed and played, the ones with whom, in unaccustomed solemnity, we have gathered in rooms almost dim with tobacco smoke to discuss all the problems of life that stretch from opin- ions on the worth of orchestra leaders to the questions of destiny and life7s fulhllment. The future reader who absently turns these pages we bid be not too harsh in his judgment on our clays. We have lived them happily, and looked forward hopefully. For inscribed in the saga of our lives we can End the pattern of a pr0phecy and a promise which is the assurance of Godls watching over us. In His Providence we abide and in His Promises we trust.