*FF* Veteran's Day

[Akaran_D]

To our vets:

Thank you. Thank you for your service to your country, thank you for what you did for us. Thank you for fighting for your country, thank you for risking your lives for the people in charge. Thank you for accepting the grueling training and for guarding your homes, your families, your people.

Regardless of if you approve or disaprove of our military actions, please at least take the time today to honor the vetrans and the current soldiers that risk their lives every day in service to their country.


edit: I can't spell.

[Chidoro]

Agreed.

[Tenuvil]

Thanks Akaran.

Whether or not you agree with the ideological or political reasons for war in Iraq or any other war, you have to show some respect for the men and women fighting for us.

God bless the veterans.

[Wulfran]

They shall grow not old

As we that are left grow old.

Age shall not wear them

Nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun

And in the morning

We will remember them.



---- Laurence Binyon

[Knibble]

Amen Wulfie

[Winnow]

It is the soldier, NOT the reporter,
who has given us Freedom of the Press.
It is the soldier, NOT the poet,
who has given us Freedom of Speech.
It is the soldier, NOT the campus organizer,
who has given us the Freedom to Demonstrate.

It is the soldier,
who salutes the flag,
who serves beneath the flag,
and whose coffin is draped by the flag,
who allows the protestor to
burn the flag.

--------------

IN MEMORY OF DEPARTED COMRADES

Do not stand at my grave and weep;
I am not there. I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow;
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain;

I am the gentle autumn's rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush,

I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.

I am the soft star that shines at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry.

I am not there; I did not die in vain as
long as my sacrifice is not forgotten.

---------

Mrs. Bixby
Boston, Massachusetts

Dear Madam: I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant-General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.

Yours very sincerely and respectfully,
Abraham Lincoln

[Cracc]

Nice, you managed to make it political despite the FF flag winnow

[Seebs]

I'm heading the VFW after work. Nothing says thanks like a round on me.

[Kylere]

Hamlet is not my fav, but this speech is, best wishes to my fellow vets.


We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
Make him a member of the gentry, even if he is a commoner.
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

[Animale]

That's not Hamlet, that's Henry V.
But it is a good speech still, even if it isn't Hamlet.

Animale

[Cracc]

Yeah, Hamlet took place in denmark

[Kylere]

That's not Hamlet, that's Henry V.
But it is a good speech still, even if it isn't Hamlet.

Animale

Bleh, yeah brain cramp!!!

[Animale]

They do both start with an H... that's a frequent mistake I guess.

[Diae Soulmender]

Thank you,

Hospital Corpsman
Gulf War Vet
USNS Comfort - USS Okinawa
Service '89-'93

"There is no greater love than for a man to lay down his life for his friends." - John 15:13

[Brotha]

Here's a pretty good tribute to vets. I sent this to my dad (a Vietnam vet). It's from NR, but it's not very political.

http://www.nationalreview.com/owens/owe ... 110831.asp

Where Do We Find Such Men?
America’s vets.



It is fitting that, as Marines and soldiers are currently locked in a death struggle with terrorists in Fallujah, we should reflect on the meaning of two dates in November. November 10, 2004, was the 229 birthday of the United States Marine Corps. And November 11, 2004, is Veterans Day. During the recent presidential campaign, John Kerry spoke often of his "band of brothers." When they heard this reference, most Americans probably thought Kerry had taken it from the Stephen Ambrose book and HBO TV series, Band of Brothers. But Ambrose himself took it from the Saint Crispin's Day speech of Shakespeare's Henry V.

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

In his birthday message to Marines this year, the Commandant, Gen. Mike Hagee, related a story about a Marine who had been wounded in Iraq earlier this year. A squad leader, he refused evacuation until he finally passed out from a loss of blood. When he woke up in an Army hospital in Germany, he talked the staff into releasing him. He borrowed some utilities from a Navy corpsman and then talked his way aboard an Air Force transport that was flying back to Iraq. But before boarding the plane, he called his wife to tell her that he was O.K. but that he wouldn't be home because the Marines in his squad needed him. As the old question goes, where do we find such men?

The truth is that we find them all the time. My father was a Marine who fought and was wounded in the Pacific during World War II. Marine Sgt. John Basilone, a contemporary of my dad, was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his actions on Guadalcanal. Though he was not obligated to do so, he insisted on returning to combat and was killed on the first day of the struggle for Iwo Jima. Where do we find such men?

The struggle for Fallujah puts me in mind of my own band of brothers: the Marine rifle platoon that I led in Vietnam from September 1968 until May 1969. The men of that platoon would all have preferred to be somewhere other than Vietnam's northern Quang Tri Province, but they were doing their duty as the understood it. In those days, men built their lives around their military obligation, and if a war happened on their watch, fighting was part of the obligation. But there is one Marine who stands out in my memory: Corporal Larry Boyer.

The fact is that Corporal Boyer went far beyond the call of duty. At a time when college enrollment was a sure way to avoid military service and a tour in Vietnam, Corporal Boyer, despite excellent grades, quit, enlisted in the Marines, and volunteered to go to Vietnam as an infantryman. Because of his high aptitude-test scores, the Marine Corps sent him to communications-electronics school instead. But Corporal Boyer kept "requesting mast," insisting that he had joined the Marines to fight in Vietnam. He got his wish, and on May 29, 1969, while serving as one of my squad leaders, he gave the "last full measure of devotion" to his country and comrades. Where do we fid such men?

Larry Boyer was an only child. I corresponded with his mother for some time after his death. Her inconsolable pain and grief put me in mind of Rudyard Kipling's poem, Epitaphs of the War, verse IV, "An Only Son:" "I have slain none but my mother, She (Blessing her slayer) died of grief for me." Kipling too, lost his only son in World War I.

Unfortunately, Larry Boyer did not get to enjoy the fruits of being a veteran as described by another Marine with whom I had the pleasure to serve. Master Gunnery Sergeant Rogers was one of the most remarkable Marines I ever knew. He was a "Montford Point Marine," named after the base in North Carolina where African-Americans who enlisted during World War II and served in all-black units in the segregated Marine Corps of the era, mostly in combat-service support jobs, were trained. One of his first assignments was to help transport the bodies of dead Marines back across the beaches of Okinawa during the ferocious battle for that island in 1945. As distasteful as his early experiences may have been, he persevered; the Marines were the first service to integrate in the early 1950s, and Master Gunny Rogers had a long and distinguished career in the Marine Corps, lasting well into the 1970s.

If Master Gunny Rogers was bitter about his early years in the Corps, he never said so. What he did say is pertinent to the observation of Veterans Day: "There is nothing sweeter than to be an old man who has fought for his country."

So pray for our servicemen in Fallujah today and for the souls of those who have given the last full measure. May they rest in peace. Happy birthday, Marines. Semper fi. And to all veterans, God bless you and thank you for your service. And may you live long, sweet lives.

[Aslanna]

"The Americans who went to Europe to die are a unique breed. Never before have men crossed the seas to a foreign land to fight for a cause which they did not pretend was peculiarly their own, which they knew was the cause of humanity and mankind. These Americans gave the greatest of all gifts, the gift of life and the gift of spirit."

-Woodrow Wilson

[Bubba Grizz]

Remember, not all vetrens fought in a war. There are many of us who served who didn't have to face the horrors of war but were prepared to do so if we were called upon. Some of us still have connections to the military through IRR (inactive ready reserve) and can be called back even though we have been out of the service for a number of years. Some few of us have actually been in skirmishes that will never be documented, reported by the press, or even recognized by our own government. Such is the way of things and those who do so know and accept those terms.

Just don't treat someone who didn't happen to be in the service during war time with any less respect than those who are currently doing so.

[Kylere]

Well fuck me, I have to agree with Bubba, just because they were called upon to serve during combat does not mean they were more soldier than those who served during peace. Especially not since the draft ended.