Ramirez, lifted from Theo, via soltow. 
It may be possible to have one without the other, but we haven’t seemed to find they way yet.
They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years contemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
–Laurence Binyon
In Memory of the only member of my family to have made the ultimate sacrifice – 2nd LT Harris Tucker, 94th Bomb Group, 331st Squadron. Killed in Action over Germany 10 February 1944.
“Once each May, amid the quiet hills and rolling lanes and breeze-brushed trees of Arlington National Cemetery, far above the majestic Potomac and the monuments and memorials of our Nation’s Capital just beyond, the graves of America’s military dead are decorated with the beautiful flag that in life these brave souls followed and loved. This scene is repeated across our land and around the world, wherever our defenders rest. Let us hold it our sacred duty and our inestimable privilege on this day to decorate these graves ourselves — with a fervent prayer and a pledge of true allegiance to the cause of liberty, peace, and country for which America’s own have ever served and sacrificed. … Our pledge and our prayer this day are those of free men and free women who know that all we hold dear must constantly be built up, fostered, revered and guarded vigilantly from those in every age who seek its destruction. We know, as have our Nation’s defenders down through the years, that there can never be peace without its essential elements of liberty, justice and independence. Those true and only building blocks of peace were the lone and lasting cause and hope and prayer that lighted the way of those whom we honor and remember this Memorial Day. To keep faith with our hallowed dead, let us be sure, and very sure, today and every day of our lives, that we keep their cause, their hope, their prayer, forever our country’s own.”
Ronald Reagan
May 31, 1982
(h/t Maggie’s Farm)
“When You Go Home, Tell Them Of Us And Say,
For Their Tomorrow, We Gave Our Today”
Kohima Epitaph
Amen.
I am one of those very fortunate few that hasn’t lost a family member of all those that have served in WWI, WWII, Korea or Vietnam. I will, however, offer my most humble ‘Thank You’ and God Rest Ye’ to those that have paid the ultimate price. Amen!
My dad came back from WWII, not wounded but damaged still. I was too young to know that then but realize it today. My prayers are with those who gave all so that I can live free today. Having traveled the world and seen how others must live, I know how fortunate I am to have what I have because of what others gave. God bless them all.
“They sleep perpetually on small islands so that we may sleep peacefully at home” Anonymous.
Our National Anthem – with a touch of Why We Fight.
I think VX will especially like this version.
helps if I post the link, I guess.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4e6YE9S_Ow&feature=player_embedded
As Huell Howser would say, simply AMA-EYE-ZING, Joe!
Ron … I just read that Reagan quote over on Maggies. I cannot say it any more eloquently and beautifully than he did. I remember my own hero ski trooper, dead at nineteen, and buried in the American Cemetery in Florence, Italy. Today, and every day, I remember he fought so that I could have a safe happy American life.
No greater gift, is there?
Marianne
Marianne, truly there is not.
I had just finished William F. Buckleys book, “The Reagan I Knew”, and had President Reagan in my thoughts, along with the dignity and honor Mr. Reagan displayed in Normandy at Point-du-Hoc (very hard to believe that speech was more than a quarter century ago).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEIqdcHbc8I
With thoughts of your ski trooper, and his thousands of comrades.
Ron
I really enjoyed Farva’s cartoon today over at AFBlues.
http://www.afblues.com/wordpress/2011/05/30/memorial/
They also were gentle and kind and sought relief from the horror of those hard battles.
http://blogs.catster.com/the-cats-meow-a-cat-and-kitten-blog/pictures-of-soldiers-with-kittens/2011/05/28/
Image #13 is particularly poignant. I recognize the uniform and also the treads. That picture was taken in the Pacific theater of action, where the most savage fighting of WWII took place. The Pacific island-hopping campaign was a war of “no quarter”. Those treads look to be those of a destroyed small Japanese tank.
A little search on the internet yields a name, Norman Hatch, and a location, Tarawa.
http://www.humanefuture.org/2010/05/world-war-ii-in-hd.html
That US Marine combat cameraman had been through absolute Hell, and the cat as well.
Great link -thanks.
One of the most enduring traits of the American GI is how they treat kids and animals. Character.
Norm Hatch is still with us. Last month, he gave a talk to docents at the National Museum of the Marine Corps.
Number 16 shows that Evil Era Germans like katzes as well.
I was rather fond of #13, “Soldier and his Sidekick”.
How could one not look at that picture and smile?
Just so he remembers before he sits down!
Greetings:
Back in the summer of the last ’68, I was doing my military service down in Texas, which, after the Bronx, is the place I’d most like to be from. For several months, I was assigned to the base’s funeral detail. We would provide pallbearers and a rifle squad for those requesting military funerals in the local area.
Military-wise, it wasn’t bad duty. On the days when we weren’t scheduled for a funeral, we would spend several hours practicing our “drill & ceremonies” and a couple more squaring away our uniforms and equipment. On funeral days, we would head out as early as necessary on a 44-passenger bus, often in civilian clothes or else fatigues with our first-class uniforms and equipment in tow. Often we would change into our duty uniforms at the funeral home, once in the casket display room, or on the bus itself.
It being Texas and the Viet Nam war being in full swing, we often had several funerals a week to perform. There was a certain spectrum from the World War graduates through the Viet Nam casualties. The former might involve a local veterans’ group and an afterward BBQ or such. The latter were somewhat more emotionally raw as most of us were facing our own deployments in the near future.
Two funerals of the latter sort have stayed with me through the years. The first was of a young Private First Class who had been MIA for several months before his remains were recovered. I was on the pallbearer squad that day and when we went to lift the casket, it almost flew up in the air. There was so little of the young soldier left that we totally overestimated the weight we were lifting and almost looked decidedly unprofessional.
The other was that of a Negro Specialist 4th Class. I was in the rifle squad that day. In the rendering of military honors, there is a momentary pause between the end of the (21-gun) rifle salute and the beginning of the playing of “Taps”. It is a moment of profound silence in most cases. During that moment, the young soldier’s mother gave out a yowl from the depths of her grief that so startled me that I almost dropped the rifle out of my hands. That yowl echoes within me still.
I’ll readily admit that, as a result of my experiences, I became much imbued with a sense of duty and respect to and for our fallen. Hopefully, today, when our media do their reporting they will show some of the same and let “Taps” be played out in its entirety. It would be nice for a change.
11B40, I also served in the funeral detail for a few months, and it definitely deepened my appreciation for those that gave their all, and the burden upon their loved ones who remained.
Dang, Man! As we are wont to say on the Intartubez, That is Serious Business!
As I clicked on this, I was (and am) listening to “The Vanished Army” by Kenneth Alford. Why do events seem to conspire to make me weep?
Sorry, #14.