Thanks on this Memorial Holiday Weekend

[MyTeamIsOnTheFloor]

… to every soldier, and the friends and family of every soldier, who suffered these ultimate sacrifices.

I once thought I understood these things. I read textbooks and poems, watched movies. Even interviewed some WWII vets for history papers I wrote in college. Was taught by vets of WWII and Korea and even Vietnam.

But when I took maybe my 5th trip to Washington DC, walking around the National Mall, I suddenly realized that I was approaching the Vietnam Veterans Memorial … on Fathers Day. It stopped me in my tracks. I wasn’t sure I was prepared to do that. I wasn’t even sure if I should. Somehow I thought maybe that day and that place should be for families of the vets. But we went on, and I found I was absolutely NOT prepared for that day at that place. But I am glad I did it, because until you have WATCHED families and friends grieve in that way, showing every human emotion, from smiles to tears, to knee-driving grief, you do NOT understand that you will NEVER really understand … unless you lived it.

So those who did, thanks. With all respect, thanks. I hope it gets a little better for you every day.

 

[dbmhoosier]

Great post. Sad that many Americans don't actually know what this weekend is about.

 

[dr.jb]

 

[CO. Hoosier]

… to every soldier, and the friends and family of every soldier, who suffered these ultimate sacrifices.

I once thought I understood these things. I read textbooks and poems, watched movies. Even interviewed some WWII vets for history papers I wrote in college. Was taught by vets of WWII and Korea and even Vietnam.

But when I took maybe my 5th trip to Washington DC, walking around the National Mall, I suddenly realized that I was approaching the Vietnam Veterans Memorial … on Fathers Day. It stopped me in my tracks. I wasn’t sure I was prepared to do that. I wasn’t even sure if I should. Somehow I thought maybe that day and that place should be for families of the vets. But we went on, and I found I was absolutely NOT prepared for that day at that place. But I am glad I did it, because until you have WATCHED families and friends grieve in that way, showing every human emotion, from smiles to tears, to knee-driving grief, you do NOT understand that you will NEVER really understand … unless you lived it.

So those who did, thanks. With all respect, thanks. I hope it gets a little better for you every day.

For those who haven’t seen Taking Chance, it’s well worth your time.

One of my best high school friends died last November. He served in Viet Nam, received two Purple Hearts from gun shots, He was one of the best IU fans. He will be buried in Arlington in a couple of weeks. I will be thinking of him.

 

[mcmurtry66]

yessir. let's get some shoutouts. to my pop. wherever he is today and all of the siblings he doubtlessly left me floating around thailand from his time in vietnam. my favorite uncle who was the proudest marine ever to live rip who didn't come back quite right from vietnam. to @Rockport Zebra for his time in nam. the sarge @Mas-sa-suta for same. @BadWakeboarder for all his tours in the thick of it. @Aloha Hoosier for his time and sacrifice at sea. @DANC PSYOPS, and sniper kills. and others i may have missed

enjoy the day gents and many thanks from those who spent those 18-22 yrs of age wasted on The Beast and Purple Passion attending bare as you dare contests. i don't think normal folks really appreciate what all of you have done for all of us

 

[BadWakeboarder]

yessir. let's get some shoutouts. to my pop. wherever he is today and all of the siblings he doubtlessly left me floating around thailand from his time in vietnam. my favorite uncle who was the proudest marine ever to live rip who didn't come back quite right from vietnam. to @Rockport Zebra for his time in nam. the sarge @Mas-sa-suta for same. @BadWakeboarder for all his tours in the thick of it. @Aloha Hoosier for his time and sacrifice at sea. @DANC PSYOPS, and sniper kills. and others i may have missed

enjoy your day gents and many thanks from those who spent those 18-22 yrs of age wasted on The Beast and Purple Passion attending bare as you dare contests. i don't think normal folks really appreciate what all of you have done for all of us

It’s not my day since I’m alive, but I appreciate the shout out.

Here’s to Tyler and Rob…both robbed of growing old.

On edit:

OPINION: Remembering Lieutenant Brown

I remember reading Tyler Brown’s obituary in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in the fall of 2004 and thinking, “What a loss.”

www.ajc.com

https://www.ikn.army.mil/apps/MIHOF/biographies/Scheetz%20Bio.pdf

 

[hoot1]

Great post. Sad that many Americans don't actually know what this weekend is about.

View embedded media

DBM, it is sad that most Americans celebrate the holiday not knowing it is about those who perished while serving.

On the other hand is it really all that sad when we mistakenly respect all who served during years of combat ?

Just asking.

 

[mcmurtry66]

DBM, it is sad that most Americans celebrate the holiday not knowing it is about those who perished while serving.

On the other hand is it really all that sad when we mistakenly respect all who served during years of combat ?

Just asking.

i think most understand memorial however it's a military association adn there's never enough opportunities to give thanks to those who served. but obviously you are correct re perished and a holiday of rec for those no longer with us. i mean our prez is using the occasion to again note that he was appointed to the naval academy, which is apparently just another lie in a long list of his lies

 

[Circlejoe]

Great post. Sad that many Americans don't actually know what this weekend is about.

View embedded media

Sad that you went there.

 

[VanPastorMan]

… to every soldier, and the friends and family of every soldier, who suffered these ultimate sacrifices.

I once thought I understood these things. I read textbooks and poems, watched movies. Even interviewed some WWII vets for history papers I wrote in college. Was taught by vets of WWII and Korea and even Vietnam.

But when I took maybe my 5th trip to Washington DC, walking around the National Mall, I suddenly realized that I was approaching the Vietnam Veterans Memorial … on Fathers Day. It stopped me in my tracks. I wasn’t sure I was prepared to do that. I wasn’t even sure if I should. Somehow I thought maybe that day and that place should be for families of the vets. But we went on, and I found I was absolutely NOT prepared for that day at that place. But I am glad I did it, because until you have WATCHED families and friends grieve in that way, showing every human emotion, from smiles to tears, to knee-driving grief, you do NOT understand that you will NEVER really understand … unless you lived it.

So those who did, thanks. With all respect, thanks. I hope it gets a little better for you every day.

We went to Washington DC for a band trip. It was cool seeing the tomb to the unknown soldier and we were there when they changed the guard. We have lost a lot of good people so we all can be free. It really does mean something. I pray for the families on memorial day who lost somebody. For us it is all theoretical, something that is just an idea. Them folks have experienced it.

 

[dbmhoosier]

DBM, it is sad that most Americans celebrate the holiday not knowing it is about those who perished while serving.

On the other hand is it really all that sad when we mistakenly respect all who served during years of combat ?

Just asking.

We already have a holiday for that. It's in November.

 

[hoot1]

We already have a holiday for that. It's in November.

Knew that.

Still wonder how many of us do.

 

[hoot1]

i think most understand memorial however it's a military association adn there's never enough opportunities to give thanks to those who served. but obviously you are correct re perished and a holiday of rec for those no longer with us. i mean our prez is using the occasion to again note that he was appointed to the naval academy, which is apparently just another lie in a long list of his lies

MM66, happy holiday.

Can remember the time after WWII when a veteran running for office had an advantage over an opponent who didn't serve regardless of party.

These days few pols have served (think Biden and Trump). They do however give lip service to those who have.

 

[mcmurtry66]

MM66, happy holiday.

Can remember the time after WWII when a veteran running for office had an advantage over an opponent who didn't serve regardless of party.

These days few pols have served (think Biden and Trump). They do however give lip service to those who have.

You too my friend. Enjoy.

 

[mcmurtry66]

Funny one for the holiday weekend. One of my partners is a lot like Jeff Greene from curb. Doesn’t want confrontation etc. his wife is a work from home accountant who is a total pain the ass. Well she got into a real big fight with the neighbor bc the neighbor’s dogs wouldn’t stop barking and were driving her nuts. Screaming. Neighborhood cop pulled up. Shit show.

So my buddy is a cigar guy. All he wants to do is get home from work and sit on his back patio and have a big cigar and drink. He said last night he got home. Grabbed a cigar and a drink and plopped down in his favorite patio chair and a red light hit him right between the eyes. The neighbor installed all kinds of cameras in back and they all point right where his chairs are 🤣🤣🤣

 

[Mas-sa-suta]

Sad that you went there.

What are you saying?

 

[DANC]

yessir. let's get some shoutouts. to my pop. wherever he is today and all of the siblings he doubtlessly left me floating around thailand from his time in vietnam. my favorite uncle who was the proudest marine ever to live rip who didn't come back quite right from vietnam. to @Rockport Zebra for his time in nam. the sarge @Mas-sa-suta for same. @BadWakeboarder for all his tours in the thick of it. @Aloha Hoosier for his time and sacrifice at sea. @DANC PSYOPS, and sniper kills. and others i may have missed

enjoy the day gents and many thanks from those who spent those 18-22 yrs of age wasted on The Beast and Purple Passion attending bare as you dare contests. i don't think normal folks really appreciate what all of you have done for all of us

Thanks, but Memorial Day is for the ones who didn't make it home.

We have our day on Nov. 11.

 

[BradStevens]

Watched Saving Private Ryan tonight with my son. His first time.

That movie still packs a punch.

I used to think the framing device was corny--the old vet coming back to Normandy and the ending where he tells the gravestone of Capt. Miller he thinks he's lived a good life and earned it, as he told him to do. Never liked it and could already pick up on the survivor's guilt thing from Matt Damon's acting.

For the first time tonight, though, I thought Spielberg means us, the US viewers. We have to earn it, since that's what all these guys died for and by us doing that, we give their deaths--and therefore their lives, too--meaning.

To all the families that laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of Freedom, thank you.

And thank you, Abe Lincoln (or John Hay) for the Bixby letter:

Executive Mansion,
Washington, Nov. 21, 1864.

Dear Madam,

I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle.

I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save.

I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of Freedom.

Yours, very sincerely and respectfully,
A. Lincoln.

 

[DANC]

Watched Saving Private Ryan tonight with my son. His first time.

That movie still packs a punch.

I used to think the framing device was corny--the old vet coming back to Normandy and the ending where he tells the gravestone of Capt. Miller he thinks he's lived a good life and earned it, as he told him to do. Never liked it and could already pick up on the survivor's guilt thing from Matt Damon's acting.

For the first time tonight, though, I thought Spielberg means us, the US viewers. We have to earn it, since that's what all these guys died for and by us doing that, we give their deaths--and therefore their lives, too--meaning.

To all the families that laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of Freedom, thank you.

And thank you, Abe Lincoln (or John Hay) for the Bixby letter:

Executive Mansion,
Washington, Nov. 21, 1864.

Dear Madam,

I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle.

I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save.

I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of Freedom.

Yours, very sincerely and respectfully,
A. Lincoln.

Abe did have a way with words

 

[dbmhoosier]

Thanks, but Memorial Day is for the ones who didn't make it home.

We have our day on Nov. 11.

That's my point. A guy like Aloha who served us definitely deserves our gratitude and he gets it. But a guy like the one in the photo I posted above who never even made it home to meet his unborn child deserves even more of our thanks.

 

[VanPastorMan]

That's my point. A guy like Aloha who served us definitely deserves our gratitude and he gets it. But a guy like the one in the photo I posted above who never even made it home to meet his unborn child deserves even more of our thanks.

I served as an Air Force cook and was trained to tag dead bodies and hunt for bombs during war time along with setting up tent cities.

 

[DANC]

I served as an Air Force cook and was trained to tag dead bodies and hunt for bombs during war time along with setting up tent cities.

I did training on an Air Force Base in San Angelo Texas - Goodfellow AFB.

Their midnight breakfasts were the bomb! Air Force chow is top notch, as were the dorms we lived in. Better than my room in Briscoe, by a long shot.

Oh, and they would pack a meal for you, if you wanted it to go.

 

[VanPastorMan]

I did training on an Air Force Base in San Angelo Texas - Goodfellow AFB.

Their midnight breakfasts were the bomb! Air Force chow is top notch, as were the dorms we lived in. Better than my room in Briscoe, by a long shot.

Oh, and they would pack a meal for you, if you wanted it to go.

The best job I had there was being the baker. I would make a ton of breakfast pastries, 200 cookies, 24 fruit type pies, 24 cream type pies, 24 round cakes which would 2 different kinds. On reserve weekends I would make more.

 

[76-1]

Some appropriate Memorial Day (weekend) music:









Sincere Condolences to any Gold Star families who may see this.

 

[Rockport Zebra]

yessir. let's get some shoutouts. to my pop. wherever he is today and all of the siblings he doubtlessly left me floating around thailand from his time in vietnam. my favorite uncle who was the proudest marine ever to live rip who didn't come back quite right from vietnam. to @Rockport Zebra for his time in nam. the sarge @Mas-sa-suta for same. @BadWakeboarder for all his tours in the thick of it. @Aloha Hoosier for his time and sacrifice at sea. @DANC PSYOPS, and sniper kills. and others i may have missed

enjoy the day gents and many thanks from those who spent those 18-22 yrs of age wasted on The Beast and Purple Passion attending bare as you dare contests. i don't think normal folks really appreciate what all of you have done for all of us

Thanks, but I must correct the record of my service. I was a Volar recruit after the end of the draft. Vietnam era but never in a fight.

 

[76-1]

And for Monday 5/27/24 -

 

[Mas-sa-suta]

Thanks, but I must correct the record of my service. I was a Volar recruit after the end of the draft. Vietnam era but never in a fight.

You didn't miss a thing, Top...

 

[Mas-sa-suta]

… to every soldier, and the friends and family of every soldier, who suffered these ultimate sacrifices.

I once thought I understood these things. I read textbooks and poems, watched movies. Even interviewed some WWII vets for history papers I wrote in college. Was taught by vets of WWII and Korea and even Vietnam.

But when I took maybe my 5th trip to Washington DC, walking around the National Mall, I suddenly realized that I was approaching the Vietnam Veterans Memorial … on Fathers Day. It stopped me in my tracks. I wasn’t sure I was prepared to do that. I wasn’t even sure if I should. Somehow I thought maybe that day and that place should be for families of the vets. But we went on, and I found I was absolutely NOT prepared for that day at that place. But I am glad I did it, because until you have WATCHED families and friends grieve in that way, showing every human emotion, from smiles to tears, to knee-driving grief, you do NOT understand that you will NEVER really understand … unless you lived it.

So those who did, thanks. With all respect, thanks. I hope it gets a little better for you every day.

My personal worst day of the year is tomorrow, Memorial Day.

 

[76-1]

To the Warriors who've given us our Freedom:

THANK YOU

 

[MyTeamIsOnTheFloor]

My personal worst day of the year is tomorrow, Memorial Day.

God bless, bro.

Glad you made it back. Please know that an uncountable multitude appreciate your sacrifice, the sacrifices of your brothers-in arms, and your grief for and honor of the ones who never came back.

You all deserved better.

 

[TomEric4756]

… to every soldier, and the friends and family of every soldier, who suffered these ultimate sacrifices.

I once thought I understood these things. I read textbooks and poems, watched movies. Even interviewed some WWII vets for history papers I wrote in college. Was taught by vets of WWII and Korea and even Vietnam.

But when I took maybe my 5th trip to Washington DC, walking around the National Mall, I suddenly realized that I was approaching the Vietnam Veterans Memorial … on Fathers Day. It stopped me in my tracks. I wasn’t sure I was prepared to do that. I wasn’t even sure if I should. Somehow I thought maybe that day and that place should be for families of the vets. But we went on, and I found I was absolutely NOT prepared for that day at that place. But I am glad I did it, because until you have WATCHED families and friends grieve in that way, showing every human emotion, from smiles to tears, to knee-driving grief, you do NOT understand that you will NEVER really understand … unless you lived it.

So those who did, thanks. With all respect, thanks. I hope it gets a little better for you every day.

Yes the black slabs are one impressive sight. Arlington is nearly in walking distance away.

 

[TomEric4756]

Watched Saving Private Ryan tonight with my son. His first time.

That movie still packs a punch.

I used to think the framing device was corny--the old vet coming back to Normandy and the ending where he tells the gravestone of Capt. Miller he thinks he's lived a good life and earned it, as he told him to do. Never liked it and could already pick up on the survivor's guilt thing from Matt Damon's acting.

For the first time tonight, though, I thought Spielberg means us, the US viewers. We have to earn it, since that's what all these guys died for and by us doing that, we give their deaths--and therefore their lives, too--meaning.

To all the families that laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of Freedom, thank you.

And thank you, Abe Lincoln (or John Hay) for the Bixby letter:

Executive Mansion,
Washington, Nov. 21, 1864.

Dear Madam,

I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle.

I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save.

I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of Freedom.

Yours, very sincerely and respectfully,
A. Lincoln.

Well said … Pvt Ryan … is one of the better modern war movies …

It puts “the smell of napalm in the morning” to shame

 

[JamieDimonsBalls]

god damn libs

 

[CO. Hoosier]

Yes the black slabs are one impressive sight. Arlington is nearly in walking distance away.

The “black slabs” are a fitting memorial to those who died in Viet Nam. As a memorial to those who fought and survived there, it’s unfulfilling. Our Viet Nam veterans didn’t receive respect when they returned home, and they didn’t receive respect with this memorial to those who died there. The memorial puts an exclamation point on our mistake, it doesn’t recognize the vets. Much better is the nearby memorial to the nurses, and the Korean War memorial. Both of those recognize the living.

 

[MyTeamIsOnTheFloor]

god damn libs

View embedded media

They are Deplorables.

 

[Joe_Hoopsier]

god damn libs

View embedded media

Rope them, tie it to the bumper and drive. We can call it bullshit doggin.

 

[Aloha Hoosier]

god damn libs

View embedded media

At least they got out of the way after a couple minutes.

 

[Mas-sa-suta]

Well said … Pvt Ryan … is one of the better modern war movies …

It puts “the smell of napalm in the morning” to shame

It's all theater, Bruv.

 

[Joe_Hoopsier]

At least they got out of the way after a couple minutes.

I see that sensitivity training has done well, for you. I always enjoy seeing progress from our warriors.

 

[Aloha Hoosier]

I see that sensitivity training has done well, for you. I always enjoy seeing progress from our warriors.

Once again, you make zero sense. Are you implying I support those shit? If so, I don’t, and if you actually paid attention and understand what I routinely post here you’d know that. Stop speaking in gibberish. It’s Memorial Day. Can you stop nonsense posting for one day?