Who Will You Remember this Memorial Day?

[true_notes]

This Monday is Memorial Day. A somber day in which we recognize the dead of the past, and the current war casualties. I call on you all to do just one thing for our fallen veterans and living ones as well, because in my opinion they deserve at least one day's respect.

I know this war is unpopular, but there are men and women just like you out in the sands of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan striving for normality, and they are trying to hold our flag a little higher than the current administration. Being a person in uniform, I hold great pride in my service and me being an American, and I know all the vets on here feel or have felt the same way.

Please keep us all in your minds and prayers, we need all the support we can get.

Thank you all
True_Notes

[orwell]

1. The Fallen

I will try to remember all the innocent victims of war, whomever they may be. I have had great difficulty sleeping since this unholy war began. Sometimes, I can hear the cries of the bloodied children in my dreams.

I will try to imagine a future where our young men and women no longer march to the demands of the tired old men who send them off to protect the despotic golden dreams of empire.

[true_notes]

2. It was once said on the battlefield...

All men that are in a war are innocent, regardless of them wearing a uniform. It's the men in business suits with big heads and big pockets that are the war guilty.

[FreedomAngel82]

21. Exactly

And in this war Bush and the neocon-nazi's are all guilty of war crimes. Be sure to send out positive vibe's for peace and to end this soon and possible. That's what I'll be doing.

[shadowknows69]

3. Anyone who has ever paid for the folly of war

with their blood. regardless of the conflict. I hate war. I always honor our warriors. My website will be doing a long form feature of our biggest local parade and ceremony.

[Chuletas]

4. I will remember

my grandfather, a veteran of WWII, Korea and Vietnam eras. A 31 year veteran who died two years ago. The funeral was at Arlington, with my brother in law (technically AWOL) in his dress uniform saluting the casket less than 48 hours before leaving for Afghanistan. One may never see something as powerful as soldiers saying goodbye to their own. Only as an adult do I realize what my grandfather did, what he achieved as a young man who didn't speak English as a first language.

I don't like the fact that we have decayed into empire, but I will also think of my friends and family that are deployed or have recently returned.

[newyawker99]

9. Hi Chuletas!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[izzie]

5. All the people I miss and that are gone.

--

[PollyH]

8. Remember

Izzie,

You said it best. Me too. I will remember all of those who died too young and I will struggle to believe that their deaths were not futile.

[blondeatlast]

6. I will remember my father, Army Air Corps. WWII

I'll go to his grave site at the Veteran's Memorial Cemetary and remember him and all of his brothers and sisters in arms buried there, from WW1 and up.

When they play Taps, I will break into tears at what war and violence has done to every family on this earth.

As much as I despise war, I'm able to consider, through my father's painful experience, what might have been had we not participated in WW2.

Sometimes, it is a hideous, painful thing to be a human.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

7. All of the civilians killed in needless and futile wars.

[maveric]

10. My Uncle, Louis Bruno USMC. Iwo Jima, Okinawa and several other island

battles during WWII. He never spoke of the war. Couldnt attend parades or fireworks exhibitions. Never spoke of his exploits at all. After he died in 2000 my cousin found his medals in a safe-deposit box. Silver star and two Bronze stars, three purple hearts.
A very humble man and a great guy to boot.
I miss you Uncle Louie!

[Patchuli]

13. My dad was in the Pacific too

and he gave me his medals years ago. WW2 was necessary but it was something he never quite got over.

Bless your uncle and my pops.

[maveric]

14. "Salut" as Louie would say!

:toast:

[blondeatlast]

20. My father was the exact same way.

We learned early not to even bring it up. He wouldn't get angry, he would just withdraw and try to change the subject. Out of our deep respect for him, we did.

He did talk a bit to my son about it, so I wonder if it was because he had no sons, but I don't think that really was it. Even to my son, he would say precious, precious little.

[Patchuli]

11. All our fallen soldiers

but most fondly, my Dad who was in the Army Air Corps in WW2. He was a gunner on B-17s and B-24s. He did what he had to do but all his life, he couldn't talk about it without tearing up. He was flying to Pearl Harbor when the enemy attacked and he and the other planes were unarmed!
It was very sad for him years later to visit the cemetary on Oahu and find his friends' names...

Our soldiers are what made this country great...

[me b zola]

16. My father

My father was a belly (ball & turret) gunner on a B-24 during WWII. He was stationed first in N.Africa, then in Italy. When my father passed in 1991 the Airforce base close to where we were living contacted my mother, told her of medals that we didn't know he had been awarded (his 3rd purple heart & his second silver star), and told her that my father should be honnored with a military funeral.

My father was a wonderful man who taught me through example what it means to have integrity and to live couragously. I miss him deeply.

[Patchuli]

22. Sounds like our Dads had much in common

My father passed in 1994 and I miss him so much. That was very cool that the Airforce contacted your Mom to tell her about his medals. I'm going to make a shadow box with pics of a B-17 and a B-24 and a flag and his medals. Our Dads were true heroes! Imagine what life could have been for us if they hadn't fought so valiantly!

Salut to the Greatest Generation! I miss them more and more every day.
I feel more in common with them than I do with members of my own generation in many ways, especially the repubs!

Was your Dad small? Mine was and he told me that's why the Air Corps liked him!

[me b zola]

28. re was my dad small

He was actually quite tall for a turret gunner, he was 5'10', I've never heard of anyone else that tall in the belly of B-24.

Unfortunetly, my brother who has never served & didn't even like my father has most of my father's belongings. I only have one of his purple hearts and one of his bronze stars and very few pictures of the volumes that my father took overseas. When my mother passed two years ago my evil wealthy brother took almost everything, but I am left with fond memories and a lot of love in my heart. I'm glad, though, that you have those physical things to cherish, they do mean so much.

I, too, feel as though I benifitted greatly from having parents of that generation. They adopted me when they were in their early 40's, so I had a wonderful contrast of their life experiences from the early 20th century, and the great social movement of the 60's exploding all around me. I grew up hearing stories of life during the great depression, and then of their romance blooming during the age of big-band & swing music. So much contrast.

[micrometer_50]

12. Two in this thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=105&topic_id=3333444&mesg_id=3333444

[JimmyJazz]

15. PFC Gary Lee Hall USMC

Missing in Cambodia - 5.15.75

[salin]

17. My father

he was in college during WWII - and left to join the army air corps. He was supposed to go to the European theater, but do to some clerical errors he was held up for a short while and was instead sent to the Pacific.

Wouldn't speak about it much. In fact the only time I can remember his willingness to talk about it was when I was taking a recent American History course in college - and interviewed him for a paper (he went back to school and then went on for a Phd - so the old "doing it for a college paper" lure got him to talk.)

During the war he was told that if the plane was in trouble (he was a navigator) their chances were better to go down in the Ocean, rather than over "IndoChina" (esp the region later refered to by the army as: Vietnam). That, and a college work study job transcribing wire intercepts from during the war from Japan - convinced him from the earliest days of Vietnam that it was a futile and foolish war to become engaged in.

He was staunchly against the Persian Gulf war, and was afraid that his son and daughter in law (then army doctors) would be moved from europe to the persian gulf. Shortly after this time his long-dormant cancer came back with a vengance. We believe his high emotions for a sustained period of time, played a role in weakening his system for fighting off the cancer.

Back in 1992 primaries, when I was for Tsongas, he was rather taken with this Governor from Arkansas, and particularly impressed with his wife (one of the most influencial lawyers in the country, he told me). Dad was in a rapidly declining condition going into the election. The county clerk came to the house to take his vote (he was too ill to go in and vote absentee.) He hung on long enough to see Clinton win, and a day or two later was slipping to that final call. He succombed to death on a Friday the 13th (around midnight going into that day) in 1992.

He risked a promising college career (he was attending a prestigious east coast U) - to voluntarily go to war, something a lot of folks who "support the war" are unwilling to do today. The experience effected him so profoundly that he wouldn't talk about it for nearly 40 years.

This memorial day I will remember others who serve and have served, but I will spend some specific time with the memory of my late father.

[Ilsa]

18. My brother, a vet from first Persian Gulf War, told me recently

that someone he served with there was in Iraq again and got killed. I guess he'll be in my thoughts, even though I didn't know him.

I'll also remember a young man named Aubrey, whose parent parents I knew. He was killed flying in Vietnam. His body was recovered in the late 1970's and my father officiated at his burial, full honors. They were so glad to finally be able to lay him to rest near hime in Texas.

[DanCa]

19. War what is it good for?

I agree with true notes I am against this war from the very beginning. Still am. However I do not hold it against our service men and women for fighting over in Iraq. I blame the man or monkey that put them there.
True Notes I will be saying a special prayer for you this weekend bro, and a shout out to my cousin Ira Hayes,(my he rest in peice) and my uncle Donny who lost his arm in viet nam.
True story aboutmy Uncle, whose still alive btw, when we first went into Iraq he wrote a letter to the florida newspaper, it was the sun i think , about why we shouldnt be here. Than the freepers tagged his house with toilet paper and wrote coward on the door.
True Notes have a great memorial day and try to enjoy yourself this weekend. Okay bro?

[OnionPatch]

23. My father who fought in WWII

in Germany. He fought in the Battle of the Bulge. Died two years ago.

Also, his brother, my uncle, who was killed in Vietnam two weeks before his time to come home. I often wonder what he would think of things today if he had lived to come home.

[Massacure]

24. Everyone murdered as a direct result of pResident Bushit's actions.

[derby378]

25. A "vision" I had last Memorial Day

We were at my father-in-law's MOPH gathering last year, and I found myself looking at the American flag hoisted up on the flagpole.

Suddenly, it seemed like everything around me melted away - the trees, the parked cars, the picnic area - everything but the flagpole. And standing around the flagpole was an endless number of men I never knew, and it hit me. They were all in uniform. They were all saluting the flag.

These were the dead and wounded who fought in America's past wars.

I'm not one for visions, and you can easily chalk my experience up to an overactive imagination fueled by one too many caffeinated sodas. No matter the truth of it, the experience was very sobering and a little emotional.

My father-in-law was a WWII POW, a survivor of the Bataan Death March and the horrors of slave labor in a Mitsubishi mine in Japan. I am very grateful to him for his sacrifice - he never should have endured any of that. Nobody should have. But he did. And I'm thankful.

[alcuno]

26. My grandfather's younger brother.

From WWII, everyone always believed that his body had never been recovered after his plane went down. We found out last year that he is buried at a military cemetary in Belgium.

[Just Me]

27. All those who have suffered or are suffering needlessly.

All those who have sacrificed or are sacrificing to contribute towards greater quality of life for all people.