Memorial Day....

[ltxi]

I'm a hardened, jaded, cold assed kinda vet person, but there are still times....

Today early am, a visit to a travelling Wall in town for this weekend. Emotional as always. Especially this year. Rest of today and tomorrow be beer, burgers, brats, and celebration of freedom and life.

In honor of fallen brethren of all wars...very personal to me at 45 years ago...nothing out of me but silent respect now through Memorial Day actual.

Shamelessly copied from The Wall-USA's home page...never better said:

"If you are able, save for them a place inside of you and save one backward glance when you are leaving for the places they can no longer go.

Be not ashamed to say you loved them, though you may or may not have always. Take what they have taught you with their dying and keep it with your own.

And in that time when men decide and feel safe to call the war insane, take one moment to embrace those gentle heroes you left behind.

Major Michael Davis O'Donnell
1 January 1970
Dak To, Vietnam
Listed as KIA February 7, 1978


Have a good, fun, and respectful weekend all!

[yqtszhj]

I just got back from a local park and was reading a memorial for 5 local brothers that were all naval officers during ww2. 2 of them were pilots and didn't make it home.

Makes you think...

[ltxi]

I just got back from a local park and was reading a memorial for 5 local brothers that were all naval officers during ww2. 2 of them were pilots and didn't make it home.

Makes you think...

My original post said 35 years. Since edited to reality....45 years. Good lord does time slip away.

My father was WWII and I was raised in the WWII/post WWII culture. These people were proud and willingly sacrificed. Had they not......

Korea was also necessary and honorable.

"Nam was "different". Not exactly defense of the homeland. Nonetheless, all warriors fallen in the service of our country deserve our utmost respect.

[RevRay]

One of the ushers in my wedding in 1970 fell in Vietnam ... plus some others that I knew well at West Point. Memorial Day has always been a special day to me.

[wyntrout]

Even now, The Wall evokes strong feelings and makes my eyes get wet... hard to see. I was over there and "saw" combat... it wasn't my job to engage the enemy, but I saw it happen... saw at least the enemy dying, as our Air Forces pounded the enemy running across the plain south of us at Da Nang Air Base on the first day of Tet the end of January 1968.

I've never been up close to The Wall... just seen it from the street as we passed by, but every time I've seen veterans at the Wall in documentaries and on TV in the news... remembering their Brothers... Brothers in Arms. I get choked up with emotion. I've avoided going up close to it because I just feel unworthy... so many gave everything they had....

I visited die Mauer in West Berlin in late 1985 with my wife to be. It was pretty sobering to stand there and see that wall that divided a "Free" West Berlin from the Eastern controlled by the Communists... and I couldn't help but remember all of the people who died trying to cross that border and escape the tyranny behind the "Iron Curtain". Desiree and I drove through East Germany to West Berlin and spent several days there, during that time we... in uniform, as required by treaty... crossed into East Berlin through Checkpoint Charlie and spent almost a whole day and evening in East Berlin. I just tried to imagine what those people felt... seeing us walking about in our USAF uniforms... and how they must envy our being able to leave that oppressed state that they were forced to live in. I was a little paranoid and was glad to get back to West Berlin and later West Germany.

I was really surprised when the Wall was torn down and the two Germanies were reunited. I really thought that would never happen!

It's hard to believe that after all those experiences and fighting Communism for over 20 years that the stupid voters either stayed home or voted for a Communist president to give them more stuff taken from the productive part of our citizenry. What an outrage that these "Low-Information", selfish and ignorant people can vote to strip US of our constitutionally protected rights so that they can have some "free" stuff!

We owe so much to the veterans who gave everything to defend our country and protect our freedoms, but to most people, it's just another day off and time to have picnics. They haven't a clue what we're supposed to be remembering!

Thank you... thank you so very much, all of you veterans who served in our armed forces and contributed in any way to keeping our country strong and free.

Wynn:amflag:

[AJBert]

http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/2013_05_MemorialDay.png


Just to point out a little discrepancy with the origin of Memorial Day. It was not started by the Union Civil War vets but by Southern women in honor of the Confederate soldiers who died in the Civil War. It was later adopted by the nation as a whole.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederate_Memorial_Day

I do know that Mississippi closes all state gov't offices on their Confederate Memorial Day.