This
motto is
incised below a
ghastly mural by
John Singer Sargent on the
mezzanine of
Harvard's
Widener Library. It is intended as a
tribute to those
fought and
died for the
U.S. in
World War I.
It's perfectly ghastly, yet I can't help respecting this mural in a perverse way. It makes no attempt to evade the realization that serving in the military is about fighting and dying. Death and Victory are depicted as a Pretty Good Thing, and no euphemisms are employed in describing them.
See also the Battle Hymn of The Republic: "As (Christ) died to make men holy, let us die to make them free." The latter-day version says, "let us fight to make them free" or "let us live to make them free," but the original was more forthright.