Memorial Day, not remembered

[GoodSpeak]

Today, I remember my Great Uncle who perished while defending this country.

A Gunners Mate....he went down with the ship.



McGLASSON, Joe Otis GM3c USN Illinois

Source: http://www.nps.gov/archive/usar/AZCas.html

[Gary Sisco]

A bad day, Goodspeak. Respect to your uncle.

I didn't forget. I was on foal watch waiting for our new horse so I couldn't go downtown for the service but the Air Guard fly-over came right over our land, over my head, flying low enough to see real detail on the airplanes and buzzed the ridge behind our barn as they took the turn to fly over the ceremony in the village. My father led that ceremony for decades so of course I remember him, and two friends from high school days who were killed in Vietnam, along with the father of a still closely allied family, who was an Army officer.

[Gary Sisco]

Copped from Sullivan's page:

"Memorial Day orators will say that a G.I.'s life is priceless. Don't believe it. I know what value the U.S. government assigns to a soldier's life: I've been handed the check. It's roughly what the Yankees will pay Roger Clemens per inning once he starts pitching next month ... I know that my son did his best to serve our country. Through my own opposition to a profoundly misguided war, I thought I was doing the same. In fact, while he was giving his all, I was doing nothing. In this way, I failed him." - Andy Bacevich, Washington Post.

[Gary Sisco]

Meanwhile, elsewhere on the "holiday," where there weren't any sales or hamburgers on the grill:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...news-headlines

[Chris D]

We were at a festival and the governor was about 15 feet away saluting the veterans and their fallen comrades. Full color guard present. Several disabled veterans in wheel chairs. Some old guard guys in their dress blues.

Two teens in front of us, walking through the crowd to the carnival on the other side, said, sotto voice, "Fuck that guy," meaning the governor. It was all I could do not to grab them each by the neck, but I did get out a fast "Show some respect!" They double stepped it out of there red-faced.

[jesus marion joseph]

I didn't attend any parades or ceremonies, but I did pause to reflect on the short life of my father, killed in action in Viet Nam at the age of 24, leaving behind a young wife and two young boys. He and his crewmates volunteered for a second tour of duty and were all killed three months after deploying. He had intended to make the Air Force his career, and had joined out of high school. He would be 64 if he were alive today.

Unfortunately, I've lost touch with his family (he has a sister, my aunt Judy) over the last 40 years. My mother remarried a couple of years after his death (she was subsequently remarried and divorced again), and I was too young to know what the dynamics were between everybody back then, though I'm sure it wasn't easy trying to keep everyone together as an extended family unit.

Anyway, one of my hopes is to find the remainder of his extended family before we're all dead.

[Gary Sisco]

People can say what they want, but I think it would be a much more polite and respectful society if the open-handed slap came back into fashion, Chris. I'm often appalled at such ceremonies, and also at funerals, at how many people, visibly, simply don't know how to behave.

[Gary Sisco]

I hope you fulfill your hope, John. Respect to your father.

[Gary Sisco]

Frankly, another reason I didn't attend yesterday is that I've attended enough vets' and soldiers' and marines' funerals in recent years that the ritual breaks my heart. Particularly, the rifle volleys, followed by "Taps." That's the saddest blues there is. So many people killing and dying today for no good reason at all. It gets seriously difficult after a time to maintain a dignified bearing throughout.

And I get offended, often, at the slovenly behavior at the Memorial Day ceremony, frankly. People who don't remove their hats or stand to or anything else. Just passive spectators.

My father used a line that often got people's attention. Immediately before the rifle volleys, he'd say with a commanding voice: "Salute the dead!"

It helped to remind people -- some of them, anyway -- why there were standing around.

I remember also several friends who were killed in Nicaragua, an American included.

[Gary Sisco]

It does have its lighter side sometimes, though. Once years back, I was working on the line in a factory. Of the four people within conversation's reach on the line, three were vets. We started talking about having the following Monday off for Vet's Day (we didn't, actually). The lone guy who wasn't a vet was hot to hear we had a long weekend coming up. We started fucking with him about how only vets got the day off. He got all indignant. "That's not fair!" What's not fair about it? You a vet? "Well, no." Well, alright, then.

We fucked with him for most of the day before he realized we were just passing otherwise boring time til we punched out.

[clinthopson]

It used to be called "Decoration Day."

It's pretty hard to be patriotic for many since Viet Nam and now Iraq.

I lost several friends in Korea, so the day means something to me although I admit I can't abide the ceremonial stuff with religious crap thrown in.

[Jimmy Cantiello]

I was watching the news at lunch today. I didn't catch what town or city this happened in but a couple of teenagers were arrested when they were caught throwing eggs at a military Honor Guard during a Memorial Day ceremony. The Honor Guard was commencing a twenty-one gun salute in tribute to fallen soldiers. Their parents must be proud of them.

[jesus marion joseph]

Originally Posted by Gary Sisco

So many people killing and dying today for no good reason at all. It gets seriously difficult after a time to maintain a dignified bearing throughout.

As I've gotten older, I definitely agree with this point of view. Maybe I'm just mad that my mother didn't get a chance at having her husband around when she was ailing and on her way out the door, so to speak, but I definitely felt more maudlin this year than most Memorial Days I can recall, other than the one I spent at the Viet Nam Memorial in D.C. That one was gut-wrenching, and I had to leave after an hour or so.

[Gary Sisco]

I haven't gone yet. Once when driving to Richmond to see a friend, about '90, somewhere in there, I thought seriously about stopping and going. I'm not sure I'd want to find and see my friends' names on there, when in public like that. But I would like to see it as a whole, one day.

Living as we do all these years later in the same town, their memories are around in reminders all the time. And always strange to think that they're always that young in memory and always will be.

I'm sure it's a beautiful thing in its own way, but, yeah, must be a terrible gut wrencher, especially from your point of view.

[Surfer]

The Lost Pilot
By James Tate

for my father, 1922-1944

Your face did not rot
like the others--the co-pilot,
for example, I saw him

yesterday. His face is corn-
mush: his wife and daughter,
the poor ignorant people, stare

as if he will compose soon.
He was more wronged than Job.
But your face did not rot

like the others--it grew dark,
and hard like ebony;
the features progressed in their

distinction. If I could cajole
you to come back for an evening,
down from your compulsive

orbiting, I would touch you,
read your face as Dallas,
your hoodlum gunner, now,

with the blistered eyes, reads
his braille editions. I would
touch your face as a disinterested

scholar touches an original page.
However frightening, I would
discover you, and I would not

turn you in; I would not make
you face your wife, or Dallas,
or the co-pilot, Jim. You

could return to your crazy
orbiting, and I would not try
to fully understand what

it means to you. All I know
is this: when I see you,
as I have seen you at least

once every year of my life,
spin across the wilds of the sky
like a tiny, African god,

I feel dead. I feel as if I were
the residue of a stranger's life,
that I should pursue you.

My head cocked toward the sky,
I cannot get off the ground,
and, you, passing over again,

fast, perfect, and unwilling
to tell me that you are doing
well, or that it was mistake

that placed you in that world,
and me in this; or that misfortune
placed these worlds in us.

[Gary Sisco]

From a reader at Andrew Sullivan's site:

A friend obtained the names of some Marines in Iraq through the wife of one in the 3rd Light Armored Recon Battalion. A group of us "adopted" fourteen of those Marines, exchanging mail and sending care packages. After they returned to California we had a big party for them and found that four out of the fourteen used English as a second language - they were either recent immigrants or the sons of recent immigrants - earning their citizenship by serving our country in the most dangerous way imaginable. They were proud of their service, and a valiant part of this close-knit brotherhood.

Every time I read or hear a rant by some anti-Hispanic demagogue I remember the thrill of speaking with these men who were true patriots, and I wonder what sacrifice the critic has made for our country. Have they served in the National Guard, or have they volunteered to put their life on the line in the service of our country as these young men have? What have the critics done to "earn" their citizenship?

Personally, I think we need these young men and their families. We need the courage and determination shown by these immigrants who are willing to make great sacrifices to become residents and citizens of our country. I can only hope that others lucky enough to be born here will be willing to make similar sacrifices to renew the greatness of our country.

*************
Nuff said. Some people do. Others talk.

[Jeffrey Wozniak]

[Surfer]

That is, quite honestly, the stupidest political cartoon I've read in recent memory.

[crawjo]

I don't think I understand the purpose of Memorial Day. I don't think U.S. soldiers who are dying are dying for freedom. I don't really think they are dying for country either, and if they are, I don't think that's a good enough reason to kill or die for. I feel that the holiday is an attempt by the government to turn loss of life in wartime into a celebration of the nation and the flag, and I don't think those are things worth celebrating. I think the rituals of these ceremonies are mostly ridiculous, whereby politicians transform dead bodies and gravesites into political props. Cursing out the governor and throwing eggs at least shows that there's some discontent out there. I'll take that over "respect" any day of the week.

[Jimmy Cantiello]

Yes, you're right. You don't understand the purpose of Memorial Day.

[Gary Sisco]

You're right, Jimmy. Saddest part is he's far from alone. There are millions.

You're right, Sufer. Ditto. Ditto.

[clinthopson]

Decoration Day, now Memorial Day, started right after the Civil War to honor the soldier of the Grand Army of the Republic who had fallen. Back in those olden days, folks would go to the military cemeteries and place flowers on the graves.

The South didn't have the same holiday until after WWI when it was made a national holiday.

It had some meaning back then. I don't think it's as relevant today with all the cynicism that has build up over the last four wars since WWII.

[patricia]

Originally Posted by Gary Sisco

From a reader at Andrew Sullivan's site:

A friend obtained the names of some Marines in Iraq through the wife of one in the 3rd Light Armored Recon Battalion. A group of us "adopted" fourteen of those Marines, exchanging mail and sending care packages. After they returned to California we had a big party for them and found that four out of the fourteen used English as a second language - they were either recent immigrants or the sons of recent immigrants - earning their citizenship by serving our country in the most dangerous way imaginable. They were proud of their service, and a valiant part of this close-knit brotherhood.

Every time I read or hear a rant by some anti-Hispanic demagogue I remember the thrill of speaking with these men who were true patriots, and I wonder what sacrifice the critic has made for our country. Have they served in the National Guard, or have they volunteered to put their life on the line in the service of our country as these young men have? What have the critics done to "earn" their citizenship?

Personally, I think we need these young men and their families. We need the courage and determination shown by these immigrants who are willing to make great sacrifices to become residents and citizens of our country. I can only hope that others lucky enough to be born here will be willing to make similar sacrifices to renew the greatness of our country.

*************
Nuff said. Some people do. Others talk.

My late father would agree, Gary. He received his Canadian citizenship [he was Norwegian] because of his military service during WWII with the Princess Patricia Light Infantry.
He never talked about the war, although he and his army buddies kept in touch for the rest of their lives.
The only thing he ever said to me about that time was that anyone who has ever fought in a war would never wish for their sons or daughters to be sent to war declared as anything but a last resort, after all other methods had failed and the country's safety from invasion was at stake.
Thank God he didn't live to see this present fiasco in Iraq develop and fester.

[GoodSpeak]

If I may be so bold, the day does hold some meaning for those of us who have lost family members and other relatives or friends in wartime. I say my Great Uncle died in the defense of his country....not for the flag. I also have a distant cousin on the Vietnam Memorial Wall, and countless other family mambers who have either served or died in every war dating clear back to the Ameican Revolution. We even fought each other during the Civil War.

Memorial Day is the one day a year we pay a small tribute to them.


JMJ's story, for example, touched my heart....that's what the day is for, IMHO.

[patricia]

I agree with you, Goody. My father, and his eight brothers all served in the military. Two of them died in the war and Dad lost several dear friends to war. He never failed to put on his medals and attend Rememberance Day ceremonies to honour those who had died.
He would say that the war that is being waged now in Iraq is an obscenity and dishonours the very idea of defending freedom as we all understand it to be.

[Gary Sisco]

I'm not a patriot, actually. I despise the word, even, the way it is used.

Nevertheless, had anyone thrown eggs at a color guard of vets in my presence, they would have spent the rest of their holiday in the hospital.

[crawjo]

Actually, I should rephrase. I'm more "hostile" than "confused" by the idea of Memorial Day. I am hostile to the way the event is used to construct nationalist narratives out of the graves of dead soldiers. I wouldn't throw eggs at such events, mainly because I have no interest in attending them in the first place (also, I'm not one to throw things in public). But the act of throwing eggs suggests to me that maybe Memorial Day remains a contested space, and that is something I applaud.

[Gary Sisco]

Actually, Crawjo, to tell the real truth, after your last two remarks, I couldn't care less what you think about it or about anything, actually.

What you think matters not anyway, because like millions of others who share your views, in political reality, where it comes to doing instead of talking, what you think amounts to nothing more than additional CO2 added to the atmosphere. And thank goodness, I should add.

And I agree that you wouldn't throw them because to do so would be to act. And it would also be to accept the consequences of acting, whether you wanted to or not. You have insulted millions of good people. I'm glad of one thing, only, and that is that this exchange has taken place in cyberspace, where no ground is "contested" in fact. In the real, physical space, your comments would be "contested" by me, you can be assured, and not in the form of a "narrative," nationalist or otherwise.

[Jimmy Cantiello]

To me, the act of throwing eggs at a memorial event which one doesn't particularly believe in is a disrespectful and childish act, especially when one can simply stay away from the event and ignore it.

[Gary Sisco]

True. But children of any age used to get spanked when dissing people that deeply. Clearly, Crawjo has yet to be.