Graduation today, family staying with us.
It’s a free country: Go out and enjoy the weather.
Spare a thought for those who made it possible.
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Unfortunately, not slow enough:
Navy pilot, 3 daughters die in Nevada
“RENO, Nev. — A small plane has crashed while approaching an airport in the town of Fallon, killing a naval air station officer and his three daughters, authorities said Saturday.
Cmdr. Luther H. Hook III, 44, died when his twin-engine Cessna 320 crashed and burst into flames Friday night about a mile from the runway after a flight from Fresno, Calif., base spokesman Zip Upham said.”
“Hook, a 1986 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, was a decorated pilot who amassed over 2,700 flight hours in an F/A-18 Hornet, flying from the USS Kitty Hawk and other aircraft carriers.”
“Go out and enjoy the weather.”
It’s raining here in WNC. However, I’m grateful for those who made it possible for me to whine about the weather.
Never forget, always honor their sacrifice.
Indeed.
Went to Green Cove Springs for some tourist type recreation, only to find that they’ve turned the town green into a small slice of your picture. It seems residents could buy a wooden white cross and paint it with the name of a deceased service member and put it up for the weekend. Apparently, they got more interest than they bargained, so they started selling flags to put up in there, too. All the $$ goes to soldiers’ charities, too.
Was a nice surprise.
Just got back from Andersonville Nat’l Cemetery in GA. Burried my Father in Law there, retired ET Master Chief , about three weeks ago. Nice ceremony and very well attended. Nice to see a lot of young kids along with my 5 year old there, learning the true meaning of Memorial Day.
All you vets reading this, THANK YOU for your service.
Claudio
Went to Arlington early in the morning and paid my respects to my great-uncle, a B-29 engine mechanic who served in WWII and Korea. Watched the staging for Rolling Thunder, and saw lots of arriving bikes on the way home.
A beautiful day in the DC metro area.
We are blessed as a nation by the service of our vets. I humbly say “Thank you.”
“Happy Memorial Day.”
Two people greeted me with that today, and although I appreciated it, it caught me totally off guard. I thought it was an odd greeting given the gravitas and deep meaning of the day. But a quick Google search hints that it may indeed be a common greeting.
I have never had a “happy” Memorial Day. Oh, I have had fun, done fun things with family and friends that made me happy. But the day itself never has.
Somber, thankful, grateful, respectful, solemn, and wishful are the adjectives for me that describe the day, but not happy. (Although I am happy for the resulting freedom.)
What would make it a “happy day” would be if it were like any other day with no Flanders Fields, no Tomb of the Unknown, no wreaths or solemn ceremonies, and if some of my old friends would be alive today to enjoy a barbeque in the back yard. But that is not reality, and Memorial Day will never be happy for me.
BT
Congratulations lex, and all others who had family or friends graduate in recent days.
We were away to witness and celebrate a graduation too. There is much refreshing to see a new generation freshly equipped with new tools to take on the challenges of the future with great vigor and promise. This makes me happy.
I will be forever grateful to those that stood up to the fight and went and fought in Flanders Field and Belleau Wood and at Bastogne and Normandy and Midway and Okinawa and in OEF and OIF. I dread the world where no person steps forward to wage war against evil because the left wins and we all are forced to embrace evil rather than fight it.
I was unable to get away today until 1530 and then I drove out to Fort Rosecrans. I was a little concerned because the signs say the road closes at 1700 and I did not know how long I’d be there. As I drove out the long road to the cemetery I was passed by hundreds of other cars heading the other way and there were still hundreds more parked alongside the road.
The veterans were still there but they’d been joined by youngsters from the latest campaigns. One was a young Air Force LT right up front. I stopped by CAPT Estocin’s memorial. The crew had done an excellent job for this Medal of Honor aviator.
I drove by this cemetery hundreds of times since I had business further out the peninsula. I rarely stopped, even on the way home at the end of the day…unless there were a couple of government vans parked on the roadside. It was an honor to be there even if just for a little while and to see so many others.
Traveling this weekend, to graves of ancestors and to honor the birthday of a good friend. On the way home I went through Sac City, IA.
Across from the cemetary is a monument to the fallen, twin 75mm pack-howitzers and an obelisk with perhaps 20 flags surrounding.
Couldn’t help myself, I stopped. Stared. Here in middle of the road between Not Much and Little More stood more pomp and circumstance to our honored dead than was to be found in Des Moines or Omaha or Kansas City or Sioux City.
I unholstered the cell phone, rolled down the window, started to try to outline the picture.
She asked, “Would you like to use my camera instead? Your cell phone can’t capture that.”
“No, dear. Thanks anyway.” I rolled up the window and drove away, her opinion having convinced me.
“Not much use taking a picture, 12 megapixels or 2, no picture can capture it.”
She put her camera back in the bag, I pulled back into what is called traffic on I-20 in Iowa, and headed for home. We had seen it, but no photograph could capture it.
The remains of the parade were strewn about, the old tractors and the convertibles and the high school marching band members on the sidewalk heading back to picnic lunches with the folks. The little kids still marching down the sidewalk looking for any orphaned bit of candy that might be resting against the curb.
The veterans in their uniforms surrounded by their family and friends, looking not at all unlike frogs stood up in uniforms — sticks for legs and bumps for bottoms making the uniforms look loose and ill-fitting until the swell of the chest and the ribbons and medals make that blouse almost fit after all these years.
We headed west on Highway 20. This is their time, their place. I am the stranger here.
The remaining six hours into South Dakota and points north were only broken by the sips of coffee and weather reports from the radio, each of us in quiet contemplation.
– Max