BS: Memorial Day

Subject: BS: Memorial Day
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 25 May 09 - 11:35 AM

I posted this on the Kitchen Table thread but felt it deserved a thread of its own.

Jerry

I look for Woody every day I go on the Riverwalk. He's a short, thin man who walks with a slight list to the left and he's there every day. It doesn't make any difference whether it's raining or snowing, bitter cold or blistering hot. You can count on Woody.

Today is Memorial Day and while I was on my walk, I called my friend Joe Evans to thank him for serving our country. Joe was in the Navy during the second World War. Not surprisingly, Joe wasn't home. Even though he'll turn 85 the day after tomorrow, you can't keep him down. He's probably driving someone to the airport.

When I saw Woody coming toward me motoring along the Riverwalk, I called out a greeting to him. "Hey, Woody! How you doin' today?" "I'm doing fine," he said. Woody is always doing fine. "Hey Woody, were you in the service?" "Yes I was. I was in Korea," he responded. "I'm thanking everyone who has served our country, I said. "I just want people to know that I appreciate what they did." And the floodgates opened.

Woody is usually a man of few words. While we've come to know each other a little when we meet on our morning walk, the conversations are always brief and sunny. This morning it wasn't just the dark clouds overhead that dampened the spirits of the day. It was old memories, restoked.

"I was in Korea for 12 months." Woody said. "Most of the other guys were sent home after ten months, but I never complained so they kept me there a couple extra months. I was pissed off, but I never said anything." Woody is still pissed off. As he talked he became very agitated. "It was hard staying alive, just because of the weather," He said. "It was winter and it was freezing cold. We like to froze to death." I told him about my friend, Jerry Rau, who served in Korea and brought it home with him. I met Jerry many years after the war, and he was still fighting it. He wrote a powerful song, and a book of the same title: "Knocking on the Devil's Door." When I told Woody, he understood what Jerry was talking about. Jerry was a young, idealistic kid, probably much like Woody was back in those days. The war knocked the stuffings out of Jerry, along with most of his idealism.

"I watch on the news how stressed out the soldiers are in Iraq and Afghanistan," I said. And Woody got angrier. "They never should send those guys back for a second tour of duty, he said," his voice rising. "Do they have any idea what they've gone through?" I had clearly touched an old wound, and Woody was back remembering how he felt after he came home from Korea.

As I told Woody, My father was too young for the First World War and too old for the Second. I was too young for the Korean War and too old for the Vietnam War. My sons were too old for the Middle East War, and even though my oldest son Gideon was in the Air Force for two years, he never left the country. We've been pacifists by coincidence. We don't know the pain that people carry deep in their hearts from their action in past wars, but for me, I am thankful for the sacrifice they've made. You don't have to understand something to appreciate it.

Subject: RE: BS: Memorial Day
From: katlaughing
Date: 25 May 09 - 12:31 PM

Thanks for putting this in its own thread, Jerry. I would have missed it, otherwise.

My dad's childhood friend, Lloyd Coleman, is aiming to be the oldest living WWII veteran. He is now 95, still doesn't have to take any medications, is active, sees well and restores old automobiles. His son has put up a website about his service here at Warrior Saga.

I would remember my uncles: Courtney, Howard, and Arthur, who all served.

Subject: RE: BS: Memorial Day
From: Amos
Date: 25 May 09 - 12:45 PM

Amen, Jerry.

Like many of the young men of the time, I stayed to hell out of a war I thought was madness. But the men and women I have met who went there, and friends from my youth who went and did not come back, have never left my mind. The ones who died in the flesh and the ones who came back with dead souls and singed minds. And the few who came back and went on living, making the best of a mad world.

I know a few heroes from WWII and probably many more than I even realize, because so many men said so little about what they went through in the war.

It has always irritated me, the dissonance; I hate war, despise its stupidity, its brutal unreason, and yet those who go into it are heroic in my mind. It was not their failure which brought the wars into existence; they are not the declarers, nor the instigators. They accept what has been given and proceed into hell with huge gouts of fear and courage and rage and gawd-knows-what-else, and they keep walking.

I do not know anyone who comes out unscarred; some succumb to the insanity they have been forced to take in, and others outshine it sooner or later.

God bless them all.



A

Subject: RE: BS: Memorial Day
From: Ebbie
Date: 25 May 09 - 01:40 PM

And a thank you from another pacifist. I look to the day when wars are 'fought' between the heads of government and their immediate cabals. After a long round of negotiations and sanctions and carrots. Leave the 'people' out of it. War is brutal and brutalizing and insane, not to mentoin archaic.

But I too am in awe of our servicemen and servicewomen who give their best - and in some cases, their all - to what they perceive as their country's need. I thank them all. When I see someone in military uniform my heart lifts in prayer that the wearer may stay safe and intact physicaly and mentally and emotionally.

Subject: RE: BS: Memorial Day
From: Janie
Date: 25 May 09 - 02:26 PM

At 3:00 today local time (whenever it is 3:00 where you are,) the President has asked that everyone take a minute to remember those who have died in service to our country.

I'll be remembering allwho have died in war, be they friend or foe, military or civilian.

Subject: RE: BS: Memorial Day
From: Amergin
Date: 25 May 09 - 03:56 PM

My late uncle Jim, was a sergeant in Korea....he never talked about it....he was always joking, pulling pranks and the like....he came home and used the GI Bill to get his pilot's license. Later he flew for Air America.

I always kind of wondered how some people keep fighting for the rest of their lives...and others seem to just move on....

Or is it that they haven't moved on, but constantly embroiled in a silent battle?

My little brother is on his way to Iraq for his second tour.

Subject: RE: BS: Memorial Day
From: Amos
Date: 25 May 09 - 04:18 PM

Some people are encapsulated in a battle that informs all their subsequent decisions for centuries. Others could walk away from Waterloo or Da Nang and leave it in its own place on the timeline and never even worry about it. Others are somewhere in between. The ratio between how overwhelming the experience is and how much free attention the individual has is a different net value for each individual.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Memorial Day
From: Janie
Date: 25 May 09 - 05:08 PM

I find myself also thinking of our several Mudcat Veterans who served in Korea and Vietnam, (and there may still be a few who served in WWII) who lead rich lives and contribute wonderfully to this community, but who also have noted on occasion that they still deal with PTSD, or other significant after effects of the awful experience of active combat.

Thank you, and bless you also.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Memorial Day
From: katlaughing
Date: 25 May 09 - 05:33 PM

Please consider CLICKING HERE and signing a petition in support of the following bill. I was alerted to it by VoteVets.org:

We the undersigned, call on Congress to immediately pass Congressman John Boccieri's Blue Star/Gold Star Flag Act of 2009 (H.R. 2546), which would guarantee that Blue Star Families and Gold Star Families can put a service flag in their windows in any residential property, without limitation.

Here is an example of why:

In Ohio recently, a woman who had a son in Iraq was told by her condominium association that she couldn't put a Blue Star service flag in her window, signifying that she had a loved one in harms' way.

Congressman John Boccieri, an Iraq war veteran who VoteVets.org PAC supported in his election, has introduced legislation guaranteeing that Blue Star Families and Gold Star Families (those who lost a loved one) can put a service flag in their windows in any residential property, without limitation. This bill just makes common sense.

We're supporting his Blue Star/Gold Star Flag Act of 2009 (H.R. 2546) and are asking you to take today to join us in our petition to Congress to immediately pass the bill.

Thank you,

kat

Subject: RE: BS: Memorial Day
From: gnu
Date: 25 May 09 - 05:41 PM

Lest we forget.

Subject: RE: BS: Memorial Day
From: Sorcha
Date: 25 May 09 - 10:12 PM

I remembered my dad today...he was WW II, first troop ship into Japan after the Bomb....Signal Corps. He only told the funny stories. There is a lot I don't know about what happened to him.

I lost Dad in 89....here's to you, Dad, and all the other dads, brothers, husbands, mothers, sisters, wives, daughters...all over the world.

War is HELL...may it end soon. ALL of it.

Subject: RE: BS: Memorial Day
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 25 May 09 - 10:27 PM

I had a cousin who was at Pearl Harbor when it was attacked. For years, they kept fishing pieces of shrapnel out of his body as it worked its way to the surface, like boulders in a New England field.

Subject: RE: BS: Memorial Day
From: katlaughing
Date: 26 May 09 - 12:38 AM

Did anyone else see the PBS docu, tonight, called Hallowed Grounds?. It was very educational, emotional, well done. Here's a little bit of the blurb:

Many people are aware of the famous American military cemetery at Omaha Beach, Normandy, site of one of the D-Day landings in 1944. But few know there are twenty-one other American military cemeteries in eight different countries memorializing those who were not brought back to the United States after World War I and World War II. Each of these commemorative places is powerful and unique, and has its own story to tell.

These cemeteries, created and maintained by the U.S. government through the American Battle Monuments Commission, are permanent memorial sites, built to stand the test of time. Collectively they contain the remains of 125,000 Americans. There are 94,000 more names commemorated on Walls of the Missing. Dignified and serene, they were created to honor America's fallen, but they are also intended to inspire and teach the living.

You may watch the video on that site and read more. The thing that really got to me was how it seems to me a lot of us are very ignorant of these cemeteries, other than the most famous, yet time after time, they showed natives of the countries where our dead are buried, going there, even sixty years later, and honouring our war dead for bringing them freedom. Their schoolchildren are taught to never forget.

Some of it was a little glorified in rhetoric, but it was a very moving program, regardless. I am glad I watched it.

Subject: RE: BS: Memorial Day
From: Pauline L
Date: 26 May 09 - 01:41 AM

This puts a human face on the issue.

Subject: RE: BS: Memorial Day
From: SINSULL
Date: 26 May 09 - 07:52 AM

A close friend never told me he served in Korea - a marine. He was a professional opera singer - a tenor of course. Cancer, interacting drugs and delirium brought it back. He could not forget the men screaming in pain for their mothers.
RIP now.

Subject: RE: BS: Memorial Day
From: 3refs
Date: 26 May 09 - 07:55 AM

Memorial Day and Remembrance Day are both observed with much reverence in my home. I give thanks and offer a prayer for all who served, from both sides of the border.
Many battles, over the years, we stood shoulder to shoulder. It is with that in mind I always find someone(usually one or more of my kids friends)to bring to their attention the First Special Service Force, The Devils Brigade! It's my little way of honouring those to the south.
With that in mind, I hope no one is offended by the link I'm providing. I know it's directed towards us, but I think it speaks volumes about how we should treat all our heroes!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYlrrAWCTRg

Subject: RE: BS: Memorial Day
From: katlaughing
Date: 26 May 09 - 11:17 AM

3refs, that made me cry...beautiful.

I've posted about my Uncle Howard before...he had shrapnel near his heart all of his life which they said could kill him at any time, and pain and nightmares so bad that he finally took his own life. We suspect from the little bit he said over the years, it was the voices of those he killed which he finally could not live with. He was stuck in a foxhole on Guadalcanal for an ungodly time, something like sixty days and had to spend a year convalescing in New Zealand before he was fit enough to send home.

Subject: RE: BS: Memorial Day
From: wysiwyg
Date: 26 May 09 - 11:17 AM

Our local news is podunk, but I could not believe HOW bad they are till last night, and I still can't believe it. The whole MD focus of their coverage was celebration. Not remembrance. No "war is hell" evident in their angle. Really weird and really upsetting. I suppose one can celebrate freedom, but this day was supposed to be about the cost, always, I thought.

The cost paid by individuals on behalf of a society that had not yet figured out a better way to peace. Real peace.

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Memorial Day
From: 3refs
Date: 26 May 09 - 11:41 AM

Me too! Every time!

Subject: RE: BS: Memorial Day
From: Amos
Date: 26 May 09 - 01:59 PM

An unforgettable photo apparently taken by someone who was putting memorial flags on graves. (Scroll down to the front of the picture).


A

Subject: RE: BS: Memorial Day
From: olddude
Date: 26 May 09 - 04:25 PM

Thank you for this thread Jerry
you are a treasure to me and everyone else who knows you

God Bless
Dan

Subject: RE: BS: Memorial Day
From: Rapparee
Date: 26 May 09 - 04:58 PM

As someone who is undergoing (finally) treatment for PTSD, I can tell you that even Basic Training, whether you go to combat or not, changes you.

Consider: All of your life you're told that it's wrong to hit someone, much less kill them. Suddenly you are put into an environment where not only is is "right" to hurt and kill, but you are trained to do so.

Perhaps you are even put into the position where you must hurt or kill someone.

Your conscience is taken away and very likely never returns. Instead, you must substitute something else to live by. Things like caring for others instead of self or finding that you get more than you give. Other vets will know what I mean.

Personally, I could kill anyone without a qualm IF the situation demanded it. So could my two brothers, two of my nephews, my father, my uncles, my great-uncles.... And yet none of us is a murderer: when it was over, we just wanted to come home and get on with life.

That doesn't happen. If you have been in the military you are changed, changed utterly, and yes, a terrible beauty IS born.

Subject: RE: BS: Memorial Day
From: artbrooks
Date: 26 May 09 - 06:08 PM

I went to our local Memorial Day program yesterday. As always, we recognized the New Mexico veterans who were killed in action or who died of wounds since the prior year. Interestingly, three of the five had Hispanic surnames and a fourth was an Indian from one of the pueblos.

I volunteer as a service officer for the DAV, and I see a dozen or more veterans a week who are either dying bit by bit or whose memories of their experiences are as vivid as if they happened yesterday.

Subject: RE: BS: Memorial Day
From: Rapparee
Date: 26 May 09 - 06:11 PM

As they have every Memorial Day since 2003, the local Veterans' Service Organizations put out 4,898 crosses -- one for everyone killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. There are special crosses put out for recently identified remains from Vietnam and Korea.

It covers a soccer field and then some....

Subject: RE: BS: Memorial Day
From: katlaughing
Date: 27 May 09 - 12:19 AM

{{{{Rapaire}}}}} Thanks for sharing. You, too, Art, thanks for what you do.

Subject: RE: BS: Memorial Day
From: Greg F.
Date: 27 May 09 - 06:14 PM

Lets not forget the U.S. Civil War, which produced more casualties than ALL the other wars COMBINED that the U.S. has been involved in throughout its history.

From the Essex County, NY Republican, May [30?] 1864:

[Letter]

Keeseville, N.Y. May 24 th, 1864

Mr. Lansing:[editor of the paper]-

Dear Sir:-   I received this morning through my husband's (Capt. George Hindes [ Co.G, 96th N.Y. Vols] ) letter of the 17th, the sad intelligence of the death of Corporal Myron Arnold [Battle of Drewry's Bluff]. At the request of his mother I send you the particulars of his death.
        
The Captain writes:- "Upon our way back (on the 16th I think) our brigade covering the retreat of the 10th Corps, we heard of the heavy losses of the 118 th N.Y. Vol's, several wounded having been brought to the rear. I went to them, thinking of Myron Arnold. Oh, such sad sights as greeted me! The second sufferer I came to was indeed poor, dear Myron, shot through the left thigh, a main artery severed, and he was 'just going'. I knelt down by him, took his hand and spoke to him, asked him if he knew me. His eyes rested upon me, and he faintly said, "George, oh George!" I tried to bring him back, Oh, so hard! And the Surgeon whom I called, administering stimulants, he partially revived. I pressed his hand and asked him if he knew he must die. He replied, "Yes, I know it." I then asked him if I could do anything for him, if he would send any word to his mother or anybody. For some time he could not speak, but at last slowly and faintly, one word at a time, said- (a short farewell message to his home which will be sacred from all eyes-) 'No more- good bye forever ' .... He gasped a few times and then was gone. One of my men buried him, by side of the turnpike, about 12 miles from Richmond. I had just time to take a board from a cracker box and carve on it with my knife 'M. A. Arnold Co. K 118 th NYV'. In a few minutes after firmly planting it at his head, we moved to the rear....Our dead and I fear many wounded and dying, were left in the hands of the Rebels. His body could not be brought away. Poor Mr. and Mrs. Arnold. They have lost a good son, and the country a noble soldier. Sad, sad hearts, mine bleeds with theirs! Tell them I, his brother soldier, mourn with them their sad loss....If you wish to make use of any of these facts, you are at liberty to do so."

His mother had just received his last letter, written the 15th, the day before his death. With his usual thoughtfulness he had gathered upon the battlefield, a tiny little bouquet of Violets and Forget-me-nots, which he sent to his sister, tying them with some bits from the Regimental Flag. It will be a sacred memento to their stricken hearts.
                        
Yours respectfully,
                                                                
Mrs. G.W. Hindes

Subject: RE: BS: Memorial Day
From: Claymore
Date: 28 May 09 - 12:12 AM

As it happens I have a large number of graves to visit at Arlington, from my Mother and Father to my paternal Grandparents and those parents of my girlfriend, Ellen, as well as several buddies and one female friend. My daughters both sets of grandparents are buried there. What is not generally known is there is a pass system where blood relatives can request a special Handicapped-type windshield hanger, which allows the user to bypass the Visitors Center and drive directly to the gravesites in the Cemetery. It was mildly amusing to see a bunch of the Rolling Thunder types, waved to the side of the road and, as I had most of my family with me (and my girlfriend), when the guard asked for the pass he was shown six (anyone was good enough for the group). My grandparents are in old section 7 along with one of my buddies from Nam. My folks are in section 68 looking down on both the Arlington and the Pentagon 9/11 memorials, and the new Air Force monument on a hill directly behind them. (As a Marine, it is starting to grow on me). My daughter's maternal grandparents are in section 70 over near the Columbarium, which now has 5 other buildings surrounding it, and Ellen's parent's ashes are entombed there.

It is not a moment of sadness but rather of remembrance and sometimes old stories are told as mementos are laid on or near the graves. I leave Cheese-its on Dads grave, and am secretly growing wild violets on Moms side of the grave stone.   Butch Harvey gets a half of a small vodka bottle, while I drink the other half. And thus it goes.

The saddest part of the whole scenario is the political uses the living make of the dead. Many years ago I got arrested after running over an anti war demonstration in which crosses with the names of local dead where placed on the public right of way. Butches name was on one of them, and knowing that if ever a Marine could rise from the dead and kill antiwar protestors it was he, I drove my car over all of them. In court I simply asked the protesters who there to testify against me had they gotten permission from any of the families to use the names they had placed on the crosses? They said no, and not only was I released, they were charged under Virginia law for littering and obstructing traffic. 1973 was a good year.

And the Veterans Affairs hospitals have gotten much better at treatment and detecting scumbag fakes who still try to get a disability payment for non-existing wounds or pretend PTSD. I also work with the local Service officers who call me about Navy/Marine Corps cases they have doubts about. The scumbags don't know about such things as Unit Diaries, and the location of Ships Logs, and with my retirement free time, its fun to run down to the Navy Yard or to Quantico in order to get the proof to drag these liars into the open. And it the process I was able to help a woman who had been raped while in the Navy by a shipboard Marine, and verify her "fresh complaint". It was too late to get the rapist who had died in the meantime, but I got her some pretty decent benefits.

And when its my time to be buried at Arlington I will be in the best company I could hope for (except if they have their own chapter of the Navy Wives Club…)

Subject: RE: BS: Memorial Day
From: Greg F.
Date: 28 May 09 - 08:38 AM

...if ever a Marine could rise from the dead and kill antiwar protestors I drove my car over all of them.

Landmine, my hero. What a chickenshit thing to do.

Subject: RE: BS: Memorial Day
From: 3refs
Date: 28 May 09 - 08:51 AM

If you choose not to stand behind our troops, feel free to stand in front of them!

Subject: RE: BS: Memorial Day
From: Greg F.
Date: 28 May 09 - 09:02 AM

Like Kent State, you mean?

Subject: RE: BS: Memorial Day
From: Rapparee
Date: 28 May 09 - 09:11 AM

My father-in-law is in Arlington; my mother-in-law will be.

So are my wife's grandfather, great-uncle, aunt (who worked for Purple in WW2) -- in many ways it's her family cemetery. We have passes that permit us to drive in the cemetery.

My brother was stationed at Ft. Myer and used to visit the Tombs late at night.

But you needn't be at Arlington to be honored with good company. My own parents share ground with my uncles, aunts and some of my old buddies -- all of whom have these white gravestones....

Subject: RE: BS: Memorial Day
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 28 May 09 - 12:49 PM

This was clipped from an old Mudcat Memorial Day Thread. I hope you all will not object to my posting it again

The two young men walked in line with the thousands of others like them, tired men in mud-caked uniforms who plodded and slid along a sodden road in Western Germany. The sun had finally come out after two days of near constant rain, and the air was filled with rising mist from the swamp-filled potholes and streaming ditches. The men lined both sides of this road, as a river of green trucks, jeeps, and personnel carriers rumbled and shifted gears down the middle, throwing geysers of mud in the air. The men's mood was lighter after the end of the rain, though, and they laughed and catcalled to the unlucky ones caught in the sprays of muck. Some sang snatches of popular songs..Drinking Rum and Coca Cola or Lily Marlene.. and others would take up the tunes momentarily. Cigarette smoke wafted down the long line, mingling with the smell of exhaust and sweat. Despite the slogging, there was a feeling of gladness among them. The Spring was beginning, and the War was winding down. The enemy was routed, the bloody battles in the past, and soon they would be going home.
The handsome, sturdy soldier held out a pack of Camels to his buddy, the tall, lanky kid with the good-natured comical face. They lit up with the tall kid's Zippo lighter and moved on through the marshy road. They smiled and joked with the easy camaraderie of men who had waded the same surf, crouched in the same holes, dodged the same bullets, slept in the same tents, and watched others fall by the wayside in the long 11 months since D-Day. The tall kid swung his M1 up onto his shoulders, letting both arms hang through the strap, the cigarette in his left hand, near his mouth. A mess-truck lumbered up behind them, downshifting as it slipped sideways in the mud, engine suddenly roaring. "Out o' the way!" barked the Supply Sergeant at the wheel.

As the men moved away from the truck, the tall kid slipped in the muck falling against the truck. The handsome soldier, quite used to his friend's clumsiness, laughed out loud and grabbed the tall kid's arm, but the arm was pulled out of his grasp by the truck. He saw the problem instantly. The tall kid's rifle-strap had hung up on a tie hook on the side of the truck. Stumbling, ungainly, laughing in embarrassment, the skinny kid slipped along in the mud trying to keep his feet. "Stop the truck!" yelled the handsome soldier, but his shout was swallowed in the sound of engine roar and gear surge. The tall kid fell and was swept under the rear wheels of the truck.

The convoy halted, the curious foot-soldiers bunched up, and the handsome soldier cut loose the strap, pulling the mud-covered form of his friend away from the truck. When the medics arrived, the kid had stopped breathing. They quickly lifted him into a jeep as a First Lieutenant ordered the convoy forward. The handsome soldier watched the jeep travel back down the column, dodging marching men. It was four days before he heard the news that his friend had died.

The handsome soldier returned from the War, married, raised a family, endured sleepless nights, drank too much, and when he drank too much, he sometimes spoke of the war, but mainly of the friend who was taken from him on the first Spring Day at the End of the War. He died an old man, 48 years after the tall kid was buried in a field in France.


Just a note of explanation. The soldier who survived was my Dad. I have forgotten the name of the soldier who died. I honor the memory of them both.

Subject: RE: BS: Memorial Day
From: katlaughing
Date: 28 May 09 - 01:36 PM

*speechless*

(I don't remember reading that before, thank you for reposting it.)

Subject: RE: BS: Memorial Day
From: jeddy
Date: 28 May 09 - 09:34 PM

to 3refs and amos you both made me cry. that video was amazing and they both made me think. i am always grateful to the brave men and women of the worlds armed services and cannot thank them enough for the freedoms i now enjoy.

may whatever gods you choose, keep you safely in their arms and wash away the torment.

good night and sweet dreams all and be thankful for the loves you have had.

Subject: RE: BS: Memorial Day
From: Claymore
Date: 29 May 09 - 09:36 PM

Greg F, If there was ever a "chicken shit" thing to do it is to take the names of the honorable dead and use them in a "chicken shit" cause, without even their families preferences sought out.

It is so typical of your kind that when Cindy Sheehan was calling out Bush for the death of her son (dispite her other sons refusal to join her, and her husband eventually divorcing her) she was lionized by the liberal media. When she recently came out against Obama for not pulling the troops out immediately, (a position I stated he would eventually take, in a thread in May of last year, with some knowledge of the briefing that then Candidate Obama was about to receive) Cindy was nowhere to be found… run over by pandering pack of routed liberals.

But hey, I think it would be worth being dead just to see you explain yourself to Butch...

Subject: RE: BS: Memorial Day
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 30 May 09 - 01:15 AM

Wouldn't it be great if we could remember those who fought and died in the service of our country without turning those memories into an excuse for a political diatribe?

Subject: RE: BS: Memorial Day
From: katlaughing
Date: 30 May 09 - 11:28 AM

Absolutely, LeeJ!

Subject: RE: BS: Memorial Day
From: Greg F.
Date: 30 May 09 - 01:33 PM

...it would be worth being dead ...

Be careful what you wish for, Landmine. You might do the world a favor.

Subject: RE: BS: Memorial Day
From: katlaughing
Date: 30 May 09 - 02:49 PM

Would you two please stop it? It is stupid and childish to muck up a thread like this with your fighting. Go start a different thread, please; name it well so the rest of us can avoid it.

Subject: RE: BS: Memorial Day
From: jeddy
Date: 30 May 09 - 04:06 PM

hat do you think of the computer game - call of duty?
personally i think it is an outrage that people call that entertainment!!! i think it devalues the lives it has cost and ruined.
echo the post above please respect the seriousness of the thread, there are plenty of others to argue on, maybe i will join you but not here please.    thanks.

Subject: RE: BS: Memorial Day
From: Greg F.
Date: 30 May 09 - 06:44 PM

Hey, Kat-

Twasn't me that mucked up the thread by crowing about running over anti-war protesters.

Its a shame Landmine just doesn't get it- part of the oath he took - if he really was a Marine- was to defend those protesters' rights to do precisely what they did do.

Fortunately, the Marines I'm acquainted with - and they include men who served in WW II, Korea, Viet Nam and the Gulf- would consider his remarks, and possibly his person, a disgrace to the uniform.

All best,

Greg

Subject: RE: BS: Memorial Day
From: jeddy
Date: 30 May 09 - 07:57 PM

i've noticed that the post in question has been deleted thankyou to whoever did that. greg, i don't blame you for getting angry at him/ her as that was a cowardly thing to do.if they had a problem they should have talked it through with the protsters and have had enough respect not to cause such a disturbance.   how would they know if the families gave permission. think of the grief they must have already been going through without that happening.

Subject: RE: BS: Memorial Day
From: artbrooks
Date: 30 May 09 - 08:15 PM

Read the message, GregF. He ran over a bunch of paper crosses that people had put up in/on the road, not over any people.

Subject: RE: BS: Memorial Day
From: Janie
Date: 30 May 09 - 08:28 PM

What LEJ and Kat said....

Subject: RE: BS: Memorial Day
From: mg
Date: 30 May 09 - 08:35 PM

It is interesting when people just suck up freedom and feel free to insult those who kept it going for them. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Memorial Day
From: Janie
Date: 30 May 09 - 09:21 PM

What part of what LEJ said do people not get?

Peace to all.

I'm out of here.

Subject: RE: BS: Memorial Day
From: Greg F.
Date: 30 May 09 - 10:07 PM

He ran over a bunch of paper crosses that people had put up in/on the road, not over any people

Oh, well, then, that makes it a brave and honorable thing for him to have done, don't it, Art?

feel free to insult those who kept it going for them

Ya mean like insulting folks peacefully exercising their constitutional rights, Mary?

Subject: RE: BS: Memorial Day
From: mg
Date: 30 May 09 - 10:26 PM

Sorry, but I think that protecting the most likely wounded living is a higher mandate than even remembering the Dead, and I am sure they would totally agree. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Memorial Day
From: Greg F.
Date: 31 May 09 - 09:13 AM

Sorry, Mary, but just because an individual is a veteran doesn't mean he or she can't be a jackass. Military service isn't an excuse for everything.

But this doesn't mean that veterans, as a group, don't deserve our sincere thanks and respect.

Subject: RE: BS: Memorial Day
From: jeddy
Date: 31 May 09 - 05:03 PM

surely it's a case of priority(?) take care of the living then tend to the dead they would want us to. you are right.
for arguements sake we shall say that ghosts exsist. you have just been killed and 2 of your' friends are badly wounded would YOU want to be buried first or for someone to save your friends lives then come back for you?

i know which i would choose.

that is the nature of sacrifice.
putting the bigger picture before yourself, and that is why we must never forget the bravery and selflessness(?)that these soldiers showed.

it is just as disrespectful to blame ones action on being in the military and to think that you have priority over everyone else.