102 Comments

1. Fausta:

And thank you to all the soldiers who have served our country!

May 30, 2005 - 6:39 am 2. Buddy Larsen:

Roger, do you have a provenance for that wonderful B&W?

May 30, 2005 - 7:01 am 3. Roger:

It’s Memorial Day 1943 and comes from the homepage of someplace called Mountain Lakes, NJ. That’s all I know.

May 30, 2005 - 7:11 am 4. Buddy Larsen:

1943, when it could’ve still gone either way. No guarantees, looked 50-50. A gut-check year.

May 30, 2005 - 7:19 am 5. richard mcenroe:

Buddy Larsen ó I remember my granpa being outraged that FDR had no exit strategy…

May 30, 2005 - 7:30 am 6. Terrye:

Roger:

Thank you for the pics.

I would like to add something I read in a cvil war diary written by Pvt. Peter L. Kemery of the Ind Volunteers. He died on Septemeber 4, 1864 at Jonesboro, Ga. right outside of Atlanta.

How many near and dear friends fall on the battlefield and are buried away from all who are near and dear to him. No tear is shed but he is wrapped in his blanket and laid to rest with many of his comrades whose destiny was like his: the grave was closed over him and the grass will soon grow green over the spot where he Sleeps. No friends will ever come here to weep and no kindred may ever be laid at his side. The storms will soon efface the mound raised over him as a monument—but he who notices even the fall of the sparrow will gaurd his place of repose—

They sleep in secret; but their sod unknown to man is marked by God.

Friends we love most are called away

Treasures once ours have vanished forever

we fear no now we fear not

though the way through darkness Binds

our Souls are too strong to follow them

our own familiar friends

P.L.K.

May 30, 2005 - 7:33 am 7. Silicon valley Jim:

Thank you, Roger.

3:00 pm, by the way, is the official time for remembrance; I think that it’s 3:00 local time, wherever you are. I’ll be remembering, among others, my father, who landed at Omaha Beach on D-Day, fought in the Battle of the Bulge, and came home with his knees shot up. I’ll also be checking whether my neighbor the captain in the Air Force is home (he’s been gone for a few days), so I can bring him a mixed six-pack of good beers as a totally inadequate thanks for what he does.

May 30, 2005 - 7:44 am 8. richard mcenroe:

These, in the day when heaven was falling,

The hour when earth’s foundations fled,

Followed their mercenary calling

And took their wages and are dead.

Their shoulders held the sky suspended;

They stood, and earth’s foundations stay;

What God abandoned, these defended,

And saved the sum of things for pay.

–A.E. Houseman

May 30, 2005 - 8:04 am 9. David Thomson:

Isnít that Saul Bellow holding the little girl in the top picture? It sure reminds me of him.

May 30, 2005 - 8:12 am 10. PJ:

Thanks, Roger. Beautiful pictures and sentiments.

In a way, I feel like this whole process since 9/11 has been a homecoming. When I was a kid I hated America’s imperfections; now I revel in her many glories. Here’s to our incredible military, ordinary men and women who through their sense of duty and honor and through their ultimate sacrifice become quite extraordinary.

May 30, 2005 - 8:33 am 11. richard mcenroe:

“Not only are they commemorated by columns and inscriptions, but there dwells also an unwritten memorial of them, graven not on stone but in the hearts of men.” — Pericles (c. 600 B.C.E.)

May 30, 2005 - 8:33 am 12. RBMN:

I think it’s always worth remembering that before these men grabbed their rifle and stormed the hill as the final thing they accomplished on earth, about 98% I’m guessing, prayed to God first. They did it for their country, but they craved God’s blessing more. I think we’re all sure (all sane people) that God would endorse fighting Nazis and terrorists. May God bless them all.

May 30, 2005 - 8:39 am 13. chuck:

I like this photo of General Richard B. Myers. How uniquely American that photo is. Can anyone imagine the same in Europe?

May 30, 2005 - 8:42 am 14. Wallace:

The B&W looks like it was taken at the Memorial to the Unknowns, aka Tomb of the Unknown soldier in Washington. In 1984 at the dedication of the statue at the Vietman Memorial I sat there in Box #1 next to Kitzie Westmoreland, Gen. Westmorelands wife.

Every Memorial and Veterans day I am drawn to read a few passages from Tim O’Brien’s great book, “The Things They Carried”. It reminds me of times and people long gone who this holiday is all about…..

==========================

The Things They Carried….

Tim O’ Brien

“The things they carried were largely determined by necessity. Among the necessities or near-necessities were P-38 can openers, pocket knives, heat tabs, wristwatches, dog tags, mosquito repellent, chewing gum, candy, cigarettes, salt tablets, packets of Kool-Aid, lighters, matches, sewing kits, Military Payment Certificates, C-rations and two or three canteens of water…..

The carried diseases, among them malaria and dysentery. The carried lice and ringworm and leeches and paddy algae and various rots and molds. They carried the land itself–Vietnam, the place, the soil, a powdery orange-red dust that covered their boots and fatigues and faces. They shared the weight of memory. They carried what others could no longer bear. Often, they carried each other, the wounded and the weak. They carried the sky……

For the most part they carried themselves with poise and a kind of dignity. Now and then, however, there were times of panic when they squealed or wanted to squeal but couldn’t, when they twitched and made moaning sounds and covered their heads and said Dear Jesus and flopped around on the earth and fired their weapons blindly and cringed and sobbed and begged for the noise to stop and went wild and made stupid promises to themselves and to God and to their mothers and fathers, hoping not to die.”

May 30, 2005 - 8:51 am 15. Buddy Larsen:

Chuck, not day before yesterday, but maybe day after tomorrow.

May 30, 2005 - 8:52 am 16. Charlie (Colorado):

PJ, the thing I think we have to take from this is that there are no “ordinary” Americans.

May 30, 2005 - 9:06 am 17. Buddy Larsen:

Wallace, the fallen, we owe them the sun, the moon, and the stars. If only we could give them.

David, the only ‘young’ Saul Bellow I found in the first few pages of Google Images. Strong resemblance, you’re right.

Terrye, Richard, your poetry selections are very much resounding I think.

May 30, 2005 - 9:07 am 18. markus:

You’re missing a photo of some 20 year old missing a limb after a tour of duty in Iraq.

You’re also missing a photo of Bush attending a funeral of one of the soldiers who perished under his command in Iraq.

The first type of photo exists and is easy to find.

The second type doesn’t exist: Bush hasn’t attended any funerals for Americans killed in Iraq.

May 30, 2005 - 9:13 am 19. chuck:

Glad to see that Markus really cares… about trying to score points. *sshole.

May 30, 2005 - 9:22 am 20. Buddy Larsen:

The 20 year old with the lost limb is quite likely to feel like he is a big part of a big thing that is writing history, Markus. Why don’t you ask him if he feels like the sacrifice was worth it, and if so, why? And wartime presidents can’t do everything, there are other demands. Why don’t you ask the families of the fallen what they want their president to be doing with his time during this war? I think anybody with any sense of the situation will place their sensitivities ahead of yours. Can’t you leave off the partisan politics for one day? Are you completely tone-deaf?

May 30, 2005 - 9:29 am 21. Luther McLeod:

Well, after all, chuck and Buddy, it is all about him, is it not? Too clueless to be tone-deaf.

May 30, 2005 - 9:36 am 22. Buddy Larsen:

Did you like this better, markus? Because this–rather than arbitrary events in a vacuum–is how the American majority contexts the sacrifices that our finest people are making.

May 30, 2005 - 9:43 am 23. Rick Ballard:

From the link to Omar Fahlil -

“Being an I Iraqi citizen I believe I owe the men and women in the US military a lot and they deserve our utmost support and respect.

It’s their bravery and sacrifices that liberated me and my country from the worst tyrant of our time and for that I’m grateful and I say THANK YOU again.”

My thoughts of remembrance today are focused on Charles Purcell, Charlie was a high school friend who won a Silver Star as a PFC. He was covering the retreat of his platoon from an engagement with a battalion of NV regulars in June of ‘69 and stayed at his machine gun until overrun. He gave his life for his comrades and his country and I will not forget him.

Nor will I forget those who through lies and deceit turned military victory into political defeit in Vietnam. The same scum are among us today but they will not prevail. Iraq is free today due to the payment of a blood price by Americans. It will choose its own fate but it will not fall from American subversion.

May 30, 2005 - 9:49 am 24. Charlie (Colorado):

Markus, you stupid fuck, instead of attending public funerals, Bush meets privately with the families. And you don’t see many pictures of it because it’s a private meeting and they generally don’t allow pictures.

But you may remember this.

May 30, 2005 - 9:49 am 25. Rick Ballard:

I hope we can return to honoring the fallen. Freedom and liberty were purchased at too high a price for us to be drawn into a diversion from the purpose of the post.

The first amendment covers both lions and lice.

May 30, 2005 - 9:56 am 26. Buddy Larsen:

You’re right, Rick. Truth is, that’s just one more thing for which to thank the families of the fallen, for tolerating those who denigrate and make shabby use of their sacrifice.

May 30, 2005 - 10:05 am 27. Mark_Belt:

In memory of Marine Cpl. Billy Miller of Pearland, Texas whose death is described in the opening paragraphs of Dexter Filkins’s famous article on the Battle for Fallujah in the NYT.

May 30, 2005 - 10:40 am 28. markus:

Judging from the comments, I got a rise out of just the people I wanted to get a rise out of: those whose eyes are willfully shut.

I simply pointed out that Memorial Day is not about fat, middle-aged men dressing up in revolutionary war uniforms and shooting toy guns at parades, as in the second image Roger chose to post here. It’s about working class kids getting their limbs blown off in order to give Iraqis freedom – perhaps to build a better life, perhaps to get killed in the cross fire of their own burgeoning civil war. Whether you support that effort or not (and people who know me from Michael Totten’s blog know that I supported it initially, and still hope it goes well) you need to face this reality. And all of you people who read my initial post above and called me or wanted to call me “asshole” simply DON’T WANT TO FACE THIS REALITY.

Also, don’t denigrate those who fought in any unnecessary, undeclared war, and returned to oppose that war or subsequent ones. And don’t denigrate family members of who lost loved ones in undeclared and unnecessary wars and are pissed about it.

(And try to understand, if you can, that a war can be fought for a good cause — like freeing a foreign peoples from tyranny — and still be an unnecessary one. Korea, Vietnam, Iraq may have been just wars. They were not necessary wars. And they were all unconstitutionally undeclared, in my opinion.)

May 30, 2005 - 10:47 am 29. Dymphna:

Like most of you, my Memorial Day observations have their own particular history. In our rural outpost in the foothills of the Blue Ridge, some of us observed day in a special tribute to faith and hope:

Gates of Vienna

The Sergeant is gone but still celebrated.

May 30, 2005 - 11:05 am 30. chuck:

Markus,

You strike me as woefully conceited. You make points which everyone over the age of sixteen knows and takes for granted, yet you seem think that only you, in your infinite wisdom, has ever noticed them. I would also wager that many in the military come from families with a military tradition; it is not all working class folks exploited by the ruling class. In fact, all that class explanation just reeks of sloganeering and the mindlessly conventional. Grow up. You can start by acknowledging that there might be many people much smarter than your precious self and try for a bit of humility.

May 30, 2005 - 11:14 am 31. Silicon valley Jim:

I simply pointed out that Memorial Day is not about fat, middle-aged men dressing up in revolutionary war uniforms and shooting toy guns at parades, as in the second image Roger chose to post here.

At the risk of feeding the trolls, no, you didn’t simply point that out. You made no mention whatsoever of the photographs that Roger posted; rather, you told us what pictures you thought Roger should have posted but didn’t. You’re not just a fool. You’re a liar, as well.

Those men in the second picture, dressed, I believe, in the uniforms worn by our military in all our wars, not just the Revolutionary War, are most probably veterans, possibly combat veterans. I owe them more than I can ever say, whether they saw combat or not; seeing combat is as much a matter of chance as anything else. I choose to acknowledge that. It’s a shame that you don’t.

And all of you people who read my initial post above and called me or wanted to call me “asshole” simply DON’T WANT TO FACE THIS REALITY.

So now you’re a mind-reader, as well.

May 30, 2005 - 11:29 am 32. Terrye:

markus:

I second what Charlie said.

I have had family members fight in wars for this country and so have a lot of other people who post here.

Some of them have actaually lost people who served, or have seen them badly injured and disbled.

so speak for yourself.

And Bush does meet with the families. I guess if he were more like Clinton he would make sure the cameras were there, but he has more respect for the dead than that. Too bad you don’t.

May 30, 2005 - 11:44 am 33. ex-democrat:

piss off, markus

(sorry all, he’s just not worth anything more gracious – especially today)

May 30, 2005 - 1:25 pm 34. richard mcenroe:

From Austin Bay if this hasn’t been linked to already.

May 30, 2005 - 1:54 pm 35. richard mcenroe:

Memorial Day Across Borders

May 30, 2005 - 3:26 pm 36. Charlie (Colorado):

Uh, Markus, you might look back … I didn’t call you an asshole.

May 30, 2005 - 3:31 pm 37. Charlie (Colorado):

Uh, Markus, you might look back … I didn’t call you an asshole.

May 30, 2005 - 3:35 pm 38. Kevin P:

Markus:

Your concern for the dead and wounded soldiers is betrayed by your attempt to wrap yourself self rightously in the wounded to score political points. Most of the posters here do not need you to remind them that our soldiers suffer, that many are making the ultimate sacrifice. Your pompous and arrogant attitude that only Markus is aware of the horrors of war and that we need you to remind us with your snarky phoney rightousness is typical of the narcissism of the left.”Only we know what is right, if someone thinks we are wrong it must be because they are ignorant and we must remind them of what killers and warmongers they really are.

Take a look at North Korea. Take a look at South Korea. If that isn’t the most obvious justification for the sacrafice of our soldiers, a horrid Stalinist police state of the highest order where starvation is the norm and where there are absolutly zero human rights or freedom. Yes, you must be right , it would have been far better for Korea to be unified under the Dear Leader. And your cliched hypocritical use of the wounded soldiers was used by the left to protest that war too. Verbatim.

My “middle aged” brother is serving in Kosovo as a reservist right now.He is a physical therapist.He was in the last year of the Vietnam draft and served two years then too, although not in country. He is half way thru his 1 year tour and he doesn’t know if it will be extended. And he misses his family. At Camp Bondsteel near Pristina, Kosovo he handles minor injurt but when he worked at Ft. Bragg he dealt with soldiers who had been seriously

injured. And he knows many individuals and the families of the indidviduals who have lost their loved ones.And he tells me that there are some who are resentfull, naturally, and wonder if it is worth it. But he tells me that is the minority view.He doesn’t like being away from his wife and 2 daughters but he was not resentfull at all about being called up. He loves serving his country and he realizes that sometimes great countries are called upon to make great sacrafices.

The argument you make has been made about every American war since the Revolution.You don’t think the war in Iraq is good, OK. But your self important cheap political talking points on a day when most of us gathered at this thread to pay tribute to all soldiers from all wars is truly rank and the sign of someone who is so full of himself that he feels the need to spread his vomit on anyone who who passes by. I have talked to many who have disagreed with the war and we have had many civil discussions. But your self appointed Messiah act is thin and worn out, and worse, it is plagiarized from others who did it better and with more class.

May 30, 2005 - 3:42 pm 39. frendlydude2k:

>>Judging from the comments, I got a rise out of just the people I wanted to get a rise out of: those whose eyes are willfully shut.

you came to get a rise out of patriots and veterans on memorial day. nice, markus.

May 30, 2005 - 3:47 pm 40. chuck:

Umm, Charlie, it was I who had the honor. And as Markus said, “or wanted to call me ‘asshole’.” Emphasis added. I presume we may count you among the desirous?

May 30, 2005 - 3:58 pm 41. Tedd:

Markus:

Presidents don’t attend the funerals of solders killed in action unless they know them personally. It’s not correct protocol, because to attend the funeral of a soldier the President doesn’t know would be to politicize the event, and therefore to dishonour the soldier.

Presidents do attend memorial services for groups of soldiers (and others) killed in military or terrorist attacks, as Bush has done.

Tedd

May 30, 2005 - 4:17 pm 42. Morrie:

Please, if you can, take a moment to thank a veteran. I visited NYC’s Vietnam War Memorial this afternoon. As you might expect, a number of veterans were there; one even asked me if I had served. I had not since I was too young.

I had neglected to bring anything to leave at the memorial and instead, before leaving, I thanked that veteran and an Air Force vet with whom he was speaking for their service. When I said to them that I realized that these thanks came too late, the Air Force vet replied that it was never too late.

Saying thank you matters.

May 30, 2005 - 4:37 pm 43. dougf:

“You’re not just a fool. You’re a liar, as well”.—SVJ

Well that about sums Marcus up,especially on Memorial Day.

As a Canadian(oh the shame),please allow me to extend my respects on this your Memorial Day. Surprisingly some of us are truly grateful that the US stands ready to do the ‘dirty work’ when the need arises.

Thanks.

May 30, 2005 - 4:41 pm 44. AlphaBettor:

Markus, sorry you’re taking flak from the 101st Fighting Keyboardists. But your message is getting through to those they would honor. That’s why the army is missing its recruiting goals by over 40%. Our young men know the war in Iraq is based on a lie, and they are deciding to stay home, rather than risk becoming corpses to be memorialized on a future Monday in May.

May 30, 2005 - 4:41 pm 45. Buddy Larsen:

Hey Kevin P, like Morrie says, tell your brother thanks, big, big thanks, from me–from everyone here I’m sure–would you, please? He’s doing something valuable even if he did let himself go get middle-aged!

May 30, 2005 - 4:50 pm 46. Buddy Larsen:

AB is right, everything was hunky-dory in the Mideast, and not a thing was wrong except our doofless shadow of a formerly great political party managed to get its silly self voted into minority in all three branches of government and a steadily-growing number of statehouses by the ignernt & lie-swallowin’ American booboisie.

May 30, 2005 - 5:02 pm 47. Rick Ballard:

Buddy – ko$fodder – it’s better than detailia and has potential as a substitute for “pure BS”.

I’ll start worrying about recruitment goals in September – if the DoD doesn’t announce a RIF earlier. Iraqi Army recruitment is going very well and if Thunder and Lightning are successful we should see further force drawdown soon.

Then the ko$$sacks will start a new meme saying drawdown means that we “lost”. Roosters crowing on manure piles believing that they cause the sun to rise.

May 30, 2005 - 5:25 pm 48. Buddy Larsen:

I googed ‘military recruitment down’, the top url is http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/article_1896.shtml

& here’s the stat excerpt:

“The Army, which has met its manpower goals every year since 1990, has fallen behind in 2005. Through the first five months of a budget year that begins in October, the Army is about six percent behind schedule toward fulfilling this year’s goal.

The Army National Guard is having even greater difficulty. The Guard wanted to recruit 63,000 new members this year, in part to make up for a shortfall in 2004. However, four months into the budget year, by the end of January, it had signed up only 12,800 men and women, 24 percent below its target.

The Marine Corps failed to meet its recruiting goal for the second straight month in February, the first time it has fallen short for two successive months in more than a decade. The Marines missed their February objective by some 6.5 percent. A spokesman for the Marine Corps Recruiting Command told a journalist, “It is a challenging recruiting environment right now.”

It doesn’t seem surprising. Considering the Nat’l Guard’s long deployments and its being so skewed toward settled folks with families and careers, the 76% positive is more surprising than the negative 24. That Army and Marines are off 6% is also not surprising, it’s a bloody war, and one of the two major political parties is continually and with every tool to hand (including inventing statistics) doing its utmost to delegitimize the war effort. Under the conditions, the wonder is not the 6%, the wonder is the 94%.

May 30, 2005 - 5:47 pm 49. AlphaBettor:

Well, Buddy, I guess you should get your ass down to a recruiting center, or send your children. We need Americans who are willing to fight for what they believe in.

May 30, 2005 - 5:53 pm 50. Terrye:

Alpa:

Why don’t you go to the DU or somewhere and talk about trailer trash baby killers in the US military abusing innocent terrorists in the gulag. I think you would fit right in.

The amazing thing is that there are as many in the service as there are considering Clinton cut back during the socalled peace dividend and there is no draft. Even in WW2 there was a draft. And that was the good war where good things happened.

The Air Force and Navy are doing fine, it is the foot soldiers having trouble, but let’s wait and see what happens.

As for snarky comments about veterans, I have relatives who suffered permanent disabilities due to combat so I don’t need some self righteous snarky little dick lecturing me.

May 30, 2005 - 6:02 pm 51. Rick Ballard:

What a brave little anonymous seditionist liar! Admittedly, I have no respect whatsoever for Fonda and Kerry but they did have the bravado to attach their names to their stupidity.

May 30, 2005 - 6:05 pm 52. chuck:

Heh, anyone want to lay bets on AlphaBettor’s age. I admit it is hard to judge since the brainless always seem underage, but I’ll guess 19-22.

May 30, 2005 - 6:06 pm 53. Terrye:

Alpha:

One more thing. The other day I have a friend who told me that she would be glad when this was over. She said she thought that when it was all said and done the Iraqi people would be better off without Saddam Hussein and she thought the world was better off with him in jail.

But her daughter in law screams at her and tells her she is stupid for supporting Bush. This is the same daughter in law she took care of following her son’s death. The daughter in law is talking about not bringing the kids around her anymore.

My brother who I would take a bullet for and took care of for years treated me the same way.

If Americans are getting tired of this, it might not be because they think that in the long run a change in the ME was not right. It might be because they are tired of the endless asshole comments from people that can not even let a Memorial Day go by without showing their ass.

May 30, 2005 - 6:09 pm 54. Buddy Larsen:

Right, AB, I have a daughter getting out of UT with a 3.7 this summer and thinking about that very thing. I answered the call back in the late 60s but was classed 1-Y due to disability from two cartilege/ligament knee operations. I did stand up for my country working the in the Sandinista-infested Latin America in the 70s and 80s. Now, your turn, where did you earn your moral authority? When did you find yourself a Marine, face-to-face, and call him an idiot for his service? And, nice sense of decorum on Memorial Day. You could just move your ass to France, y’know, and nobody that means anything to the nation would miss you for a minute. You or your statistics.

May 30, 2005 - 6:10 pm 55. neo-neocon:

Thanks, Roger, for posting such moving photos.

At the risk of giving Marcus too much attention, I just want to say it’s interesting that he only seems concerned when it’s “working-class” kids wounded or killed in Iraq. He seems to be one of those people about whom I wrote here, in a post for Memorial Day. Marcus and company seem to believe that those who enlist in the armed forces are stupid dupes, victims of the evil machinations of Bush and company: [they] look on military volunteers of today as being either bloodthirsty warmongers (the minority), or poverty-stricken and brainwashed cannon fodder who have no idea what they’re getting into (the majority).

Also for Memorial Day, (if anyone is still reading this thread!)

May 30, 2005 - 6:14 pm 56. Terrye:

This is the most educated military we have ever had.

One of the guys I knew who went to Viet Nam and was a very good soldier would not even be able to get in the military today. He never finished high school.

Today he is a registered nurse, but back in those days of the draft he was a drop out.

I read somewhere that Abizaid has a degree in Middle Eastern studies from Harvard and is a fluent Arabic speaker.

May 30, 2005 - 6:21 pm 57. Buddy Larsen:

Beautiful writing, nnc. The middle passages, the blue sky and the sea, and the reveries where the reality of those old history-book events emotionally linked to your real world, to me were especially moving. Your writing puts a reader there with you.

May 30, 2005 - 6:28 pm 58. Kevin P:

Buddy:

I will relay your thanks to my brother. I started to reread the posts from the start of this thread. They were respectfull, virtually free from politics, most of them simple thank you’s and memorials to the fallem soldiers of the wars of our country. Then the koskids arrived spreading bile and bitterness. They try to disguise their tired old cliches as concern for the troops but the most telling line was the getting a rise from markus. This wasn’t an attempt at to raise the level of discussion or to add a different perspective to the honour most of us were trying to give to the dead soldiers of oer countries battles. It was a masturbatory desire to get attention and to end the words of praise for our soldiers. These tiny men don’t have the courage to go to the memorial services and “open peoples eyes” so they use the shadows of the net to throw out their worn out cliches and take the respectfull tone of the thread into the gutter.Instead of honouring the Dead Heroes we are talking about them. I have no doubt that markus has his eyes open, I am also sure that he rarely takes his eyes off the mirror.I think he has received enough attention and it is time we returned the thread that he ruined back to the soldiers who deserve our thanks and off these self centered morons.

May 30, 2005 - 6:34 pm 59. Terrye:

neo:

Thank you for that post.

I recently read a couple of books that really made me think of the founding of the country and the meaning of the words you referred to in the national anthem.

I read John Adams by McCollough and His Excellancy George WAshington by Joseph Jeffors. It seems that this nation came very close to not existing at all. The courage and vision of these men made the difference.

BTW the longest lasting constitution in the world is the one John Adams wrote for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. It was one of the models used for the United States constitution.

May 30, 2005 - 6:41 pm 60. Charlie (Colorado):

Markus, my father was disabled in WW II in the Pacific, my grandfather was disabled in WW I in the Atlantic; I don’t need you to tell me that people get hurt in wars.

Alpha, I failed my enlistment physical in 1975 (I always was precocious) but I spent many years, including years overseas, doing “national technical means”; I don’t need you to tell me about recruiting.

And I’m too much of an egalitarian to believe anyone is beneath contempt, but you guys are making a good run at it.

May 30, 2005 - 6:58 pm 61. Terrye:

I had hoped that we would not have to see American serviecemen and women go through the same crap today they did during Viet Nam.

It seems that there will always be those kind of people, but it would be nice if they would shut up for one lousy day.

May 30, 2005 - 7:08 pm 62. Mark_Belt:

In memory of Frank Carl Hoffman Jr., USMC, of San Jacinto H.S. and Rice Institute who was killed near Chosin Reservoir on November 27, 1950.

May 30, 2005 - 7:19 pm 63. Buddy Larsen:

That’s about the size of it, alright. Ignorance shows itself best in the invincible assumption that everyone else is likewise. But, to each his own, as Charlie says. the human comedy. Except that these ingrates are being listened to by the bad guys in the dark alleys of Baghdad, and the message is “hang in there, help may be on the way”. Your dad and your grampaw, Charlie, no matter how tough going it was for them, at least didn’t have to put up with this twist on the home front. All the more respect due the troops today, who do.

May 30, 2005 - 7:29 pm 64. Terrye:

Mark:

I had a client who was one of the ‘frozen Chosin’. He was one of the few Marines in his unit to survive. He became a Methodist minister. He said he made God a promise that if he got out of that place alive he would serve the Lord. He kept his word. He was a good man.

May 30, 2005 - 7:31 pm 65. Charlie (Colorado):

Orin Kerr at Volokh:

” It seems to me that this exactly what Memorial Day doesn’t mean. Memorial Day is about honoring the sacrifice of those who gave up their lives fighting in the name of the United States. It is about the living honoring the dead, recognizing their passing and reaffirming our memory and appreciation for what they did. It is about the troops, the grunts, the front-line soliders who left home and did not return. Memorial Day is not a time to separate out which of the dead served and died for good reasons or bad; to second-guess which decisions to declare war, launch a campaign or charge a hill were justified or not; or to test your ability to invent a populist voice to make cheap shots against an Administration you despise. I’m sure there are good times for that, but Memorial Day isn’t one of them.”

May 30, 2005 - 7:35 pm 66. Terrye:

Buddy:

I agree. Those idiots do pay attention and I am sure they think that if they just keep blowing people up their friends here in the US will pitch enough of a fit to get our guys out of there and they will take over.

The most important thing to the soldiers I have known is the belief that the losses were worth something. The idea that the loss of life and limb was not in vain. To have to see the Abu Ghraib and Gitmo crap with reporters hinting that soldiers are shooting them on purpose while at the same time they are getting shot at by people who would happily lob off markus’s head…well that is what is hard for them. They don’t mind doing their duty, they just want it to count for something.

People did not like WW2 and they wanted it to be over, but they would not have considered giving aid and comfort to the enemy. They knew who the enemy was, not like today.

May 30, 2005 - 7:39 pm 67. Luther McLeod:

“The courage and vision of these men made the difference.”

I write the obvious… But I can still work up a small lump in my throat when I think how fortunate, blessed perhaps, we were to have such a group of men at the founding of this great country. What a confluence of greatness. The syncronicity of details that merged for that particular moment of time still continually astounds me.

Can one even imagine attempting such a feat today?

But of course, it would all have been empty words without good men and women willing to sacrifice their very lives for the sake of freedom. And, oddly enough, I suspect a great many of them were not particularly literate. But they were literate enough to understand the difference between freedom and democracy and tyranny. They were literate enough to understand that there was a better way.

So I add here my thanks to all who have sacrificed for the liberty we enjoy.

And, yes, including the liberty and freedom of m***** and A****B*****, who, by the way, wouldn’t make a pimple on a good Marines ass.

May 30, 2005 - 7:43 pm 68. Terrye:

Charlie:

My feelings exactly.

May 30, 2005 - 7:44 pm 69. Buddy Larsen:

I worked as surveyor’s helper as a teen back in Louisiana, with a Marine machine-gunner who fought the Chosin Reservoir battles. He drank a lot because his hands shook so bad when he was dry. I always wondered if it was from the war. He never said. Good, good guy, but haunted (though i didn’t know that word at the time). Always smiled whenever dumb-ass teens screwed up. But he was always a million miles away. His name was Brad.

May 30, 2005 - 7:49 pm 70. Mark_Belt:

Terrye:

Frank Hoffman’s body was never recovered. His remains still lie in North Korea. Recently a relative gave a DNA sample in hopes that he may someday be returned to Houston for burial. Hats off to the “Chosin Few.”

May 30, 2005 - 7:59 pm 71. Terrye:

Mark:

I wish I could remember what unit the man I knew was in. He was a patient so I can not say his name [silly rule] but his wife told me that he had nightmares for years. His best friend was blinded in the fighting. I guess they were trapped and there was a lot of hand to hand. awful. I hope Frank Hoffman is at peace. I don’t think most people know how much it means to people to have something to bury and a place to go to mourn.

May 30, 2005 - 8:05 pm 72. Rosemary:

Thank you. A picture certainly does say a thousand words. I pray your Memorial Day was a happy one.

May 30, 2005 - 8:09 pm 73. Buddy Larsen:

Good set of milblog links, Rosemary. And same to you, hope your day was all you wanted it to be.

May 30, 2005 - 8:22 pm 74. Rick Ballard:

Can anyone name a war that didn’t have a fair number of ordinary plain seditionists?

How did naming sedition for what it is go out of fashion? I recognize that seditionists are adroit at using the First Amendment as a shield but why have we stopped using the plain name to describe their speech and actions?

May 30, 2005 - 8:28 pm 75. Kevin P:

Roger:

It is good to see that the Korean War Vets are finally getting some belated attention. The difference they made in the world is shown every time a story about North Korea is printed.The fact that these men saved millions of South Koreans from suffering the Stalinist Hell of the Kim regimes is proof that their deaths were not in vain and the suffering of the returning vets was for a heroic cause.

May 30, 2005 - 8:35 pm 76. Terrye:

Rick:

Early in our history there was the Sedition Act, but it did not work out well.

During the Revolution John Adams said the country was divided in thirds. One third timid, one third Tory, one third true blue.

Maybe it has always been like that.

May 30, 2005 - 8:37 pm 77. Terrye:

Kevin:

Those men also stopped the Communists at the DMZ. Not only South Korea was saved, but what would have become of Japan, fragile as it was back then?

When I had my farm I had a field man from Holland Dairy that came out to the place. He had a God awful limp. He said he had been a paratrooper and served in Korea. They made a mistake and dropped them on the side of a mountain. Most of the men died, but he survived because it was too damn cold to bleed to death. But his leg was ruined.

May 30, 2005 - 8:42 pm 78. Mark_Belt:

Terrye:

Thanks for your kind words. On my fourth birthday, my father drove up to the home of Frank Hoffman Jr. with my mother, sister, and me. Just as we were getting out of the car, his father came out of the house and said that this was not a good time to visit. They had just received word of their son’s death. The memory of this has haunted me ever since. Frank was an only child, and his parents are long dead. So I made this post on Memorial Day.

May 30, 2005 - 8:51 pm 79. Rick Ballard:

Terrye,

I posted the acts to provide definitions – not to suggest that a new act should be passed. I’m not in favor of squelching seditionists at all. I’m opposed to letting people wrap themselves in the Bill of Rights while spitting on it and not calling them what they are. Seditionists caused our fingthing men to be dishonored in Vietnam and they’re workiing their skinny little asses off to do it again. Last time it put 17 million South Vietnamese under the tyrants boot and got 1-3 million Cambodians killed. I would suggest that the toll would be somewhat higher if Socialist Baathist thugs regained control of Iraq because Americans “got tired” of a very necessary war. We’ll be cutting forces in Iraq soon but we won’t be leaving for a very long time – unless this slime in partnership with the MSM get their way.

May 30, 2005 - 8:52 pm 80. Terrye:

Rick:

It has to dawn on these people that Zarqawi knows what gets to people and he is using them. but no, they are too worried about Bush to waste time wondering if they are breathing life into the fighting.

What will they do when Bush leaves office, who will they hate?

May 30, 2005 - 9:02 pm 81. Terrye:

Mark:

You are nice to remember him.

Someone should.

May 30, 2005 - 9:03 pm 82. Buddy Larsen:

Second Rick’s attitude, I share it, it is inexcusable to side with an evil so blatant that there can be no ‘confusion’ available to explain the act.

Mark, that’s pretty moving. Frank Hoffman, USMC, of Houston. He is gone from our sight, but in Houston fields, children laugh and play.

May 30, 2005 - 9:16 pm 83. markus:

Everyone’s hostility toward me for my above comments seems really excessive. I watched the Nightline broadcast last year over Memorial Day weekend and the tears flowed easily. I have the same experience when I scan the photo exhibit the Washington Post puts together every few months. It is always a really powerful experience for me. Roger’s collection of Memorial Day images really paled in comparison, IMHumbleassO.

Nevertheless, if in fact I said something truly dishonorable or mean-spirited, I apologize. I also hope that you can explain to me how I might have expressed myself my more appropriately, short of registering Republican, and cursing John Kerry and Michael Moore, etc.

No, Luther, I’m not a Marine, and perhaps I wouldn’t have made a good one if I had tried to be one. But it might surprise you to know that I wish I HAD BEEN ONE, and that I seriously wanted to enlist about seven years ago, when I was 31, only to find out of course that I was two years above the max age.

If I had been a Marine, particularly if I had been in harm’s way, it is impossible to know what I would now think about war, and about people who point out the costs of war, or who oppose elective wars the U.S. government gets involved in. Or who question whether America is constitutionally incapable of fighting an unnecessary, unjust war. (And if it was, why would that be the TROOPS fault?)

I can only HOPE though that I wouldn’t talk like you.

I do know that the two friends I have who happen to be ex-Marines are much, much more anti-war than I am. One is about the most anti-american chomskyite/anarcho-socialist-of-some-sort that I have ever met. He’s nuts, but passionate. Honorable discharge, Operation Just Cause (I think).

The other is a ultra-liberal, though not radical. He’s a union organizer and field consultant on Democratic campaigns. Honorable discharge, service in Operation Desert Storm. Big fan of Scott Ritter, another Marine.

I wonder if you and everyone who has contempt for what I said have as much contempt for my Marine buddies as well?

May 30, 2005 - 9:26 pm 84. Rick Ballard:

If they posted here without hiding in anonymity, they would be listened to. For myself, I’m done responding with anything but contempt to seditionists who don’t have the guts to use their own names. C’mon if Jane and John can do it, you can to.

May 30, 2005 - 9:39 pm 85. markus:

Sorry for the double post, but I wanted to thank Tedd, for responding to me civilly and decently, even though he also disagreed with me.

I hadn’t thought that it might be against protocol for a President to attend a funeral of a soldier he doesn’t know, but I think I see your point.

Kevin P — who have I plagarized?

May 30, 2005 - 9:47 pm 86. Buddy Larsen:

Markus, if you’d posted your last post first, you’d've found a lot of people willing to explore things like anguish and doubt. You have to admit, you’re just words, like the rest of us here, and you started off kind of counter to the spirit of the day. Who can see into your heart? All I could see is someone mocking the meaning of the day. If I got you wrong, I’m sorry. It’s true, though, that this country has done as well as it has because we have elections and and then win or lose, close ranks against threats and enemies. It’s really pretty bsimple. A lot of Americans on the left act like a nation within a nation, oblivious to such ancient human wisdoms as expressed by another freer-of-slaves, Abraham Lincoln, who would know the truth of such matters, that a house divided against itself cannot stand.

Leap to OIF, unless you believe that it is a Chimpy McHitler conspiracy–which the overwhelming majority of ordinary Democrats think is nonsense–then you ought to do everything you can do to help your country make the enemy quit, instead of keep fighting.

There will be more elections, as long as we have this nation. And even if you are one of the moonbats, then, why insult fellow Americans on a day like today? Don’t you want to convert people? But, again, if I read you wrong, I’m sorry.

May 30, 2005 - 9:53 pm 87. Charlie (Colorado):

Everyone’s hostility toward me for my above comments seems really excessive.

Markus, my father always used to say that when the third person called you drunk, you should lie down.

May 30, 2005 - 10:13 pm 88. markus:

Buddy — thanks for your last post. No, I didn’t mean to mock the meaning of the day, at all. And to my mind I made that clear. But I also knew to some extent, let’s say “semi-consciously”, that others, like yourself, would in all liklihood think that I was in fact mocking the day. And I went ahead and said what I said anyway. Which was stupid, and arrogant, and wrong.

I feel like you and so many others want to wrap the misery of war in words about glory and just causes and freedom from tyranny so as to not have to see the true misery itself, for what it is. This is what countries, and governments, AND PEOPLE TOO, do so that people remain willing to fight and die. They make dying and suffering for one’s country glorious.

I’m not a pacifist, but I have a problem with that. And like I said, I know other veterans who have the same problem.

I hear people say “yes, of course, war is hell” and it sounds very perfunctory to me. Like they don’t really mean it.

Perhaps I am as wrong about this as you are when you hear me mocking the meaning of the day.

Let’s hope that situation gets better in Iraq, so that not only can our soldiers have come home, but can know that they accomplished something worthwhile.

May 30, 2005 - 10:13 pm 89. Buddy Larsen:

This is a very weird war, Markus. It started a long time ago, we just noticed on 911.

There is no enemy nation whose government can be brought to the table to agree to terms–and then make those terms stick among a national populace.

This war–which the enemy chose to fight, and which we either fight back or just give up and quit–is a psychological war.

Baghdad is the size of L.A.

L.A. could have 100 car bombs a day and lose a thousand people a month and never even notice it except for the news. The terror war is happening on a psychological level.

OIF is an effort to drain the swamp of mideast dictatorial pathology that made a terror war against the west almost inevitable in the first place.

The military coalition is draining the swamp. That’s that, the major theater part of the war. The other part is the psychological, the contest of wills.

With this enemy there can be no surrender ceremony, no foreign national army to surrender–or surrender to. It ends when one side or the other is convinced that the other side will never quit.

The left in this country is so ready to quit that it cannot HELP but stoke the enemy’s desire to fight on, hoping that our system will come to reflect the cacaphony of voices from within that have been ready to quit ever since we didn’t get a second 911.

Do you see why people who believe we have to fight and win this thing, get so frustrated with the cheap partisan domestic/politics aspect of the public debate?

That the harm it does–to the troops, to their nation–is so incredibly disproportionate to any arguable election-politics gain for the out-party?

May 30, 2005 - 10:28 pm 90. Fresh Air:

Buddy–

That last post was a thing of beauty. Thanks for crystallizing what so many of us feel.

May 30, 2005 - 10:32 pm 91. Buddy Larsen:

Anyhoo, i hadn’t seen your last post when i did that last of mine. Your closing on that good reasonable (tho arguable on nearly every point) post is a good way to agree to disagree. Nite.

May 30, 2005 - 10:36 pm 92. Buddy Larsen:

Hey, thanks, FA. just glad ole Markus decided to really talk.

May 30, 2005 - 10:43 pm 93. Fresh Air:

Every now and then one of the nutters can be saved, or at least reasoned with. You have look awfully hard to find the signs sometimes, especially when their first move is to rattle all the teacups in the house and spill stuff on the Persian carpet.

May 30, 2005 - 10:46 pm 94. Buddy Larsen:

Yeah, who wants to poltely tete-a-tete with Earthquake McGoon?

May 30, 2005 - 10:53 pm 95. KrilliX:

Hey, pssst!

KrilliX is stealing ur pictures!

The Italian Spy

May 30, 2005 - 11:59 pm 96. Luther McLeod:

Thread is over I know, but…

marcus

“I can only HOPE though that I wouldn’t talk like you.”

I made two comments concerning you, saying you hadn’t a clue and that you wouldn’t make “a pimple on a good Marines a**”. Is that such ‘bad’ talk?

I appreciate the fact that you returned and attempted to engage in a more thoughtful dialog and also for ‘getting a clue’ as to what folks here were upset about. Though I expect you got exactly the reaction you were looking for.

Sorry for the drama, but to establish some bonifides, I spent four years with the Marines, served two voluntary tours in Vietnam, and held dying men in my arms. Just saying that I know well the horrors of war. Consequently I reserve the option of opinion as to who and who would not make a good Marine. And, by the way, that saying existed long before I was on this earth.

From approximately 1969 to 9/11/01, you could have classified me with the same status of your Marine buddies, with two exceptions, the Iranian embassy takeover and the bombing in Lebanon that killed 270+ Marines. I would have gone to war on both occasions.

Buddy eloquently explained the true nature of the war we are involved in and the dangers of giving ‘aid and comfort’ to the enemy. And, yes, the left and the islamofacists are attempting to duplicate the same strategies as were used with such success in the Vietnamese war. I hold guilt to this day that I was, even if in a small way, a part of the United States decision to abandon the Vietnamese people to the fate of living under communistic tyranny. I will not make that mistake again.

I have no problem with fact based discussion as to the merits of the war we are engaged in. But ‘troll droppings’ and ‘leftist sloganeering’ are, IMHO, way out of line in a thread honoring the men and women of the Armed Services who have sacrificed the ultimate for this country.

May 31, 2005 - 9:40 am 97. Rick Ballard:

Luther,

I’m saving that post. My compliments on the clarity of expression.

May 31, 2005 - 11:11 am 98. Buddy Larsen:

Second that, in spades!

May 31, 2005 - 2:19 pm 99. Terrye:

I guess markus is gone.

Tim McVeigh might have been like your buddies too Markus, but look how he turned out. The fact that you know a couple of guys that went south does not change the fact that something like 7 out of 10 military voted for Bush.

I am so tired of hearing about how this war was not necessary.

Just how do you see this thing ending? We had two choices: cave for Saddam or take him out. Like it or not, that was the reality. He was not going to have it any other way.

May 31, 2005 - 6:26 pm 100. Buddy Larsen:

We’ll know we caved when Hezbollah and Hamas have storefront ‘charities’ in our cities, and are sending reps around to various company CEOs ‘requesting charitable donations’. And then later, running people for Congress. Our markets will be sliding into wreckage, financial institutions back to financing only cars, few people trying to get higher educations, unemployment and suicide rising, and the whole country taking on that tired, worn look as we slip into a middle eastern hostage nation despondency. Nothing dramatic to start, just an acceptance of one or two charitable organizations, who ‘want their story told, too’.

May 31, 2005 - 7:59 pm 101. Luther McLeod:

Yeah Buddy, unfortunately I know more than a few folks who would be filling out checks. We are walking a fine line here, sometimes I’m an optimist, sometimes I’m a pessimist. In the results that is. The “say the secret word” thread was somewhat depressing for me. When you folks get to talking you make a whole lot of sense, but it is above or out of the interest range of most. That is the crux. How can the intellectual foundations of freedom and the need to fight for same reach those who think it just all came out this way with no effort. We need a simple message and a simple sayer. Just a few synapses to string together in the thoughtless, somehow, someway. GW has done a good job, I have all the respect in the world for him. But somehow he is just not connecting to the other 49%, at all. And, of course, I realize what he (and us) are fighting against. But, I’m in it for the long haul, for freedom will win out in the end. Thanks for the above by the way, but the after work wine dulled the senses on this one.

May 31, 2005 - 9:14 pm 102. Buddy Larsen:

Luther, your posts knock me out–like you’re speaking straight from the heart. You’re not the only one who has no steady ‘fix’ on the swirling events. Thing is, we do know what the big picture should look like. An America not blindly hurting herself. Then foreign enemies will miraculously begin to evaporate. Our Constitution is the end-of-history, as far as a few pages of how to encourage people to be their best. There’s never any confusion about goals, just how best to get to them.

Jun 1, 2005 - 9:11 pm

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