Plans for Memorial Day....

[My I]

If you don't already have plans for tomorrow, let me make a suggestion:
Find the grave of an American Serviceman who lost their life in the line of duty. If you do not know one personally then pick one from the many in any cemetery in the country.

Once you have found one, kneel down at that grave and offer a sincere apology. Tell them that you are sorry you have taken their sacrifice for granted. Tell them that you are sorry you don't remember them every time you step into a voting booth. Tell them you are sorry that you do not remember them every time you walk into church. And every time you say or write something that opposes our government. Apologize to them for taking for granted and abusing the rights and freedoms that they sacrificed their life for. You will never know and therefore never understand the what they gave for you. You will never walk a mile in their shoes.

When was the last time you made a commitment to to something that you knew would last years and could cost you your life at any moment? When was the last time you risked everything for the safety and welfare of people you didn't know? People who would never know you or the sacrifice you made for them?

These are the men and women we honor this weekend. If you can't spend a little time to do so personally, then you don't deserve the freedoms and rights they died to protect for you.

So think hard on this tonight. And for the rest of your life. Because if it were not for them giving theirs, you would not have the life you know.

 

[Handley_Page]

A Very Valid point.

 

[Iamsubmissive]

nice reminder...I think many have forgotten the importance of this.

 

[SusanJillParker]

A big tradition in our house was sitting around the television and watching the Indy 500. Even though my family moved away to Ohio and Michigan, I still watch the race. That was one of the few good memories I had as a child.

 

[BuckyDuckman]

As a vet, and as the son of a veteran, I appreciate your sentiments. Any of us who served wrote a check payable the United States of America up to and including their life. Too many of our fellow servicemen and women saw that check cashed.

Yes, please remember those who gave the ultimate sacrifice. They are worthy, no matter how imperfect they were as individuals, they deserve our respect and appreciation. So many Americans never wrote that check that could have been payable in their own blood.

I would add to your post that we can each pay our respects in yet another way, too. We could vote, every single time there is an election. Our right to make a decision is our most precious.

Does your vote count? Yes, of course it does, even when it's nothing more than a pebble in a pond. That single pebble may not look like it made a difference but it still rises the water level a little bit. If you really want to make a difference, drag those who share your values to the polling place with you.

My dad was a veteran of WWII. He landed on the beaches of Normandy at Zero Hour + 3 minutes. The opening of "Saving Private Ryan" was his experience. He landed with forty-four men and ended that day with eleven left. Until his dying day, he remembered the name of EVERY soldier he lost from that soggy day in June until the end of the war.

If you want to be a REAL American - vote. Every time. VOTE, VOTE, VOTE!!!!

 

[Handley_Page]

I think there are only four villages in the UK which do not have some sort of memorial to those who fell in the War. Ours is not one of those, and I took my Grandson past ours (built-in to a wall outside the Church) and told him that he needs to remember them and the others.
So I told him: It took less than 15 minutes one ghastly morning in 1917 (?) for there to be not one single house in the area to have lost at least one man; Father, Brother, Son, and sometimes all three.

God Bless them

 

[ElectricBlue]

So I told him: It took less than 15 minutes one ghastly morning in 1917 (?) for there to be not one single house in the area to have lost at least one man; Father, Brother, Son, and sometimes all three.

God Bless them

I travelled through the Soviet Union by train in the 1980s, stopped every two hours in some town or other, large or small. Their war memorials are in the station forecourts - none of them are big enough to list the names lost in the Great Patriotic War, so they just state the numbers in thousands or tens of thousands who went to the Russian front, and the number who returned to that region. Maybe 10% returned. The numbers are appalling, just horrific.

We need to remember the sacrifice of soldiers in every war.

 

[49greg]

I missed the race, just forgot.

I've been thinking about my Dad, dead for some years now. During WW2 he navigated a bomber in the Pacific, at night. He had a sextant and star tables, and he steered from star to star, trying to find a tiny atoll on the way out and another on the way back. The missions lasted up to ten hours in an unpressurized aircraft at high altitude with a rubber oxygen mask on and below zero freezing temps.

Three of the five buddies he was closest to in navigator school were KIA. All of them young men in their early twenties.

War sucks.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

Lots on my plate for tomorrow.

Already immersed in eliminating adverbs, some pronouns, and 'to be' verbs from my prose. Experts rarely know the ways around such problems, so I look for the ways.

Plan to biy some books tomorrow. All are non-fiction. In a few weeks I'll buy several novels.

 

[Handley_Page]

JUST A COMMON SOLDIER
(A Soldier Died Today)
by A. Lawrence Vaincourt

He was getting old and paunchy and his hair was falling fast,
And he sat around the Legion, telling stories of the past.
Of a war that he had fought in and the deeds that he had done,
In his exploits with his buddies; they were heroes, every one.

And tho' sometimes, to his neighbors, his tales became a joke,
All his Legion buddies listened, for they knew whereof he spoke.
But we'll hear his tales no longer for old Bill has passed away,
And the world's a little poorer, for a soldier died today.

He will not be mourned by many, just his children and his wife,
For he lived an ordinary and quite uneventful life.
Held a job and raised a family, quietly going his own way,
And the world won't note his passing, though a soldier died today.

When politicians leave this earth, their bodies lie in state,
While thousands note their passing and proclaim that they were great.
Papers tell their whole life stories, from the time that they were young,
But the passing of a soldier goes unnoticed and unsung.

Is the greatest contribution to the welfare of our land
A guy who breaks his promises and cons his fellow man?
Or the ordinary fellow who, in times of war and strife,
Goes off to serve his Country and offers up his life?

A politician's stipend and the style in which he lives
Are sometimes disproportionate to the service that he gives.
While the ordinary soldier, who offered up his all,
Is paid off with a medal and perhaps, a pension small.

It's so easy to forget them for it was so long ago,
That the old Bills of our Country went to battle, but we know
It was not the politicians, with their compromise and ploys,
Who won for us the freedom that our Country now enjoys.

Should you find yourself in danger, with your enemies at hand,
Would you want a politician with his ever-shifting stand?
Or would you prefer a soldier, who has sworn to defend
His home, his kin and Country and would fight until the end?

He was just a common soldier and his ranks are growing thin,
But his presence should remind us we may need his like again.
For when countries are in conflict, then we find the soldier's part
Is to clean up all the troubles that the politicians start.

If we cannot do him honor while he's here to hear the praise,
Then at least let's give him homage at the ending of his days.
Perhaps just a simple headline in a paper that would say,
Our Country is in mourning, for a soldier died today.

© 1987 A. Lawrence Vaincourt

 

[Iamsubmissive]

JUST A COMMON SOLDIER
(A Soldier Died Today)
by A. Lawrence Vaincourt

He was getting old and paunchy and his hair was falling fast,
And he sat around the Legion, telling stories of the past.
Of a war that he had fought in and the deeds that he had done,
In his exploits with his buddies; they were heroes, every one.

And tho' sometimes, to his neighbors, his tales became a joke,
All his Legion buddies listened, for they knew whereof he spoke.
But we'll hear his tales no longer for old Bill has passed away,
And the world's a little poorer, for a soldier died today.

He will not be mourned by many, just his children and his wife,
For he lived an ordinary and quite uneventful life.
Held a job and raised a family, quietly going his own way,
And the world won't note his passing, though a soldier died today.

When politicians leave this earth, their bodies lie in state,
While thousands note their passing and proclaim that they were great.
Papers tell their whole life stories, from the time that they were young,
But the passing of a soldier goes unnoticed and unsung.

Is the greatest contribution to the welfare of our land
A guy who breaks his promises and cons his fellow man?
Or the ordinary fellow who, in times of war and strife,
Goes off to serve his Country and offers up his life?

A politician's stipend and the style in which he lives
Are sometimes disproportionate to the service that he gives.
While the ordinary soldier, who offered up his all,
Is paid off with a medal and perhaps, a pension small.

It's so easy to forget them for it was so long ago,
That the old Bills of our Country went to battle, but we know
It was not the politicians, with their compromise and ploys,
Who won for us the freedom that our Country now enjoys.

Should you find yourself in danger, with your enemies at hand,
Would you want a politician with his ever-shifting stand?
Or would you prefer a soldier, who has sworn to defend
His home, his kin and Country and would fight until the end?

He was just a common soldier and his ranks are growing thin,
But his presence should remind us we may need his like again.
For when countries are in conflict, then we find the soldier's part
Is to clean up all the troubles that the politicians start.

If we cannot do him honor while he's here to hear the praise,
Then at least let's give him homage at the ending of his days.
Perhaps just a simple headline in a paper that would say,
Our Country is in mourning, for a soldier died today.

© 1987 A. Lawrence Vaincourt

 

[My I]

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic, which thinks nothing is worth war, is much worse. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight and die, nothing he cares more about than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature has no chance of ever being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. – John Stuart Mill

Today we honor those better than ourselves. The men and women who gave all for what they believed in. What do YOU believe in that strongly?

 

[NOIRTRASH]

Today we honor those better than ourselves. The men and women who gave all for what they believed in. What do YOU believe in that strongly?

Fuck you.

I got a fractured skull and a mouth fulla broken teeth from Vietnam. It sux to be dead and I aint dead. I got lucky a lot and shit on at home. So fuck you and all the other back slappers.

 

[Handley_Page]

Today we honor those better than ourselves. The men and women who gave all for what they believed in. What do YOU believe in that strongly?

My England; free of tyranny and terror.

 

[ChloeTzang]

I've been thinking about my Dad, dead for some years now. During WW2 he navigated a bomber in the Pacific, at night. He had a sextant and star tables, and he steered from star to star, trying to find a tiny atoll on the way out and another on the way back. The missions lasted up to ten hours in an unpressurized aircraft at high altitude with a rubber oxygen mask on and below zero freezing temps.

Three of the five buddies he was closest to in navigator school were KIA. All of them young men in their early twenties.

War sucks.

It's good to remember those who fought for us. My great granddad fought right thru WW2, in the polish army facing the Red Army, survived Siberia, made it to the Middle East, fought there and then in Italy before ending up as a refugee and making to the US. I never met him, he passed away well before I was born but I have some photos of him and I remember him and other members of my family who fought, some of whom died, every Memorial Day.