A LEGISLATIVE COMMEMORATION, Posthumously honoring Sergeant Allen Kokesh, Jr.

    WHEREAS,  Allen Kokesh, Jr. volunteered to serve in the South Dakota Army National Guard, was a member of the Yankton community, and selflessly paid the terrible costs for our freedoms while serving in Iraq on February 7, 2006; and

    WHEREAS, Sergeant Allen Kokesh, Jr.'s service and ultimate sacrifice were in keeping with the highest traditions of South Dakota's veterans and the United States Armed Forces; and

    WHEREAS, we feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of ours which shall attempt to beguile the family and friends from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But we cannot refrain from even now tendering the consolation that may be found in this heartfelt appreciation and respect of the people of South Dakota that Allen died protecting; and

    WHEREAS, we pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of his family's and friends' bereavement, and leave them only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that is theirs to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom:

    NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT COMMEMORATED, by the Eighty-Eighth Legislature of the State of South Dakota, that Sergeant Allen Kokesh, Jr. is posthumously honored, commended, and remembered for his service and noble sacrifices for the people of South Dakota. In token of South Dakota's common perpetual grief at his loss, this commemoration is enrolled and appropriately immortalized for posterity. Requiescat in pace.