Remembering The Reason - And Their Sacrifice
Forums:
As we get ready to celebrate the first three-day holiday weekend of the summer, I hope folks get a chance to reflect on the reason for the "holiday'; the sacrifice of so many young men and women who gave all.
-
I'm so disappointed in those despicable pieces of shit in DC (and across the nation for that matter) who vote to usurp the democracy these folks died to defend.
I wonder what they might think now about their sacrifice. These poor sons of bitches faced horrific odds at Normandy, and saved the freaking world.
- Log in to post comments
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Johnny D
Both of my mother's
Both of my mother's grandfathers were casualties of World War 1. One killed in action. The other returned home suffering from "shell shock" and killed himself.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Bryen
https://kymkemp.com/2021/02/16/tom-mcmahon-an-incredible-story-of-a-loca...
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Rasputin O'Leary
A couple of local men.
A couple of local men. Never Forget
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Rasputin O'Leary
My dad far left, drinking
My dad far left, drinking with shipmates on leave in San Francisco before heading out to the battle of Leyte Gulf. They all made it back alive. WW2 is where pop learned to drink, he never stopped. Doc said that contributed to his Parkinson's.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Rasputin O'Leary
My dad far left, drinking
My dad far left, drinking with shipmates on leave in San Francisco before heading out to the battle of Leyte Gulf ( 1st use of kamakazi's) . They all made it back alive. WW2 is where pop learned to drink, he never stopped. Doc said that contributed to his Parkinson's. Sorry for the double post, sticky fingers.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Strangha
I compiled a little of a
I compiled a little of a Memorial Day playlist if anyone's interested. Not complete but just some choices of what's out there.
If you've never heard, Penny Evans be sure to check that out. I saw Goodman open for Prine and the audience was just freakin' STUNNED when he finished.
Sam Stone John Prine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1TmNNZJ2HI
I Am A Patriot Little Steven 1984 Rockpalast https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nzguf7WBIM0
I Am A Patriot The Burns Sisters https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88q9FVQltOA
The Ballad of Penny Evans - 4/18/1976 - Capitol Theatre Steve Goodman https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7mYhpcoSjc
Christmas In The Trenches John McCutcheon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9coPzDx6tA
I Feel Like I'm Fixin' To Die Rag Country Joe McDonald at Woodstock https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_p1JC3z2kU&list=RDF_p1JC3z2kU&start_radio=1
Born in the U.S.A. (Official Video) Bruce Springsteen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPhWR4d3FJQ
Handsome Johnny Richie Havens at Woodstock https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IYjeNdXMcU
Waist Deep In The Big Muddy Pete Seeger (Democracy Now Interview. Song at end.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0ixuSMGKeI
Waist Deep In The Big Muddy Pete Seeger https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24VOo7-ctKU The song as a single release
Agent Orange Kate Wolf - Live Album “Give Yourself To Love” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWAE9B45AO4
Masters Of War Bob Dylan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEmI_FT4YHU&list=PLk6n90VAXJUapTrjEA8Q6F6UhL7jc24P6&index=6
Lyndon Johnson Told The Nation Tom Paxton https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fuQiWIAEBE&list=PLk6n90VAXJUapTrjEA8Q6F6UhL7jc24P6&index=46
Bring Them Home (If You Love Your Uncle Sam) Pete Seeger, Steve Earle and others.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SinF4ACI-tY&list=PLk6n90VAXJUapTrjEA8Q6F6UhL7jc24P6&index=33
Lives In The Balance Jackson Browne https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_8UAYJLU98&list=PLk6n90VAXJUapTrjEA8Q6F6UhL7jc24P6&index=27
Universal Soldier Buffy Sainte-Marie https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6imjvgJFvM&list=RDj6imjvgJFvM&index=1
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Scott
We can't even imagine that
We can't even imagine that stuff anymore.
Hey raz, curious about the Parkinson's/Alcoholism connection? Roommate has it.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Localcountyline
Thanks for this thread
Thanks for this thread Slickrock.
As I've probably mentioned here before, I have my grandfather's "dog tag" from WW II.
It is a real, tactical reminder of what these guys went through.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Rasputin O'Leary
The doctors said pops alcohol
The doctors said pops alcohol use brought on more severe symptoms sooner than normally would have occurred. Dad was first diagnosed in the mid 60's, 20 years after he got home from the war, and when medical science was just starting to get a better grasp of Parkinson's. Pop's symptoms started with minor shakes then progressed to more shaking slowed movements and whispered speech, eventually his speech and motor skills totally failed him. When I was a teenager in the early 70's and needed a ride home from mom, I would call our house and pop sometimes would pick up, you always knew because you couldn't hear a thing. I'd go ' dad I need a ride home from wherever I was, giving him as much info as I could, then you would barely make out an, 'ok' response. Tough stuff to deal with, I wish the best for your roomy. Lots of patience is the key.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Strangha
Yeah, many vets continued
Yeah, many vets continued with the alcohol to forget. Many of our Vietnam vets now reside in public parks and shelters. And let's not forget the free cigarettes that hooked a bunch of them.
An op-ed from Leonard Pitts. https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/commentary/2021/05/30/leonard-pitts-he-wa...
Leonard Pitts: He was a Vietnam vet named Greg
On Memorial Day, remember those who died, and those who sometimes wish they had.
By Leonard Pitts | The Miami Herald May 30, 2021, 7:00 a.m.
It’s not every day you interview someone who tells you he wants to kill himself.
He was a Vietnam veteran named Greg, a man with haunted eyes and a soft voice filled with the horror of his experience in Southeast Asia: the jungle rot, the lost friends, the children rigged to explode when some unsuspecting GI scooped them up.
Greg limped from an old leg wound and was fighting doctors who wanted to amputate. But his real battle was in his mind and soul. Greg simply couldn’t adjust to being back in “the world.” The sight of an Asian face on the street, the pop of firecrackers on July 4th, a traffic helicopter chopping through the sky, were enough to drop him back into that jungle hell.
He said he couldn’t take it anymore. He was at his breaking point, “The last couple of weeks,” he said, “I’ve come to where I’ve been seriously considering killing myself.” Despair seemed to roll off the man in waves. “I don’t see any hope,” he told me.
There are few things that make you feel as utterly unsuited to the moment as hearing someone confess a desire to take his own life. I hadn’t bargained for this. It was 1985; a musician named Paul Hardcastle had a hit called “19,” a technopop dance song about the war, and I had simply gone to a vet center in Los Angeles to get a soldier’s perspective.
With Greg, I got that and then some. I don’t remember how I responded when he mentioned suicide. I’m sure I babbled something about seeking help, getting to the other side of pain. Greg wasn’t having it.
“That’s what got me this far,” he said in that whispery voice of his. “But now, those answers aren’t doing it for me. My thing was that, not just the guys I knew, but for the 58,000 that got blown away or that are missing, they deserve better than for me to just give up. But now, I kind of feel like they were the lucky ones. It’s like being back in the corner and I don’t know which way to go and the right way isn’t working. And I’ve tried the right way for so long. I think the only thing that’s kept me really from doing something like killing myself so far is because I don’t want to be that bad example, I don’t want to go against what I’ve been advocating all this time.”
Besides, he said, “It takes a lot of guts to kill yourself - to me. And I just haven’t got the guts yet.”
“Yet.” That word hammered me.
For a few years, I would periodically check in with Greg to make sure he was OK. But after a while, we lost touch. The other day I thought of him for the first time in years and decided to see if I could find any trace of him online, find out if “yet” ever came.
For vets, it comes all too often: in 2018, they had a suicide rate of 27.5 per 100,000, almost twice the national rate. Which suggests that for all the wounds of bone and flesh that are sustained in war, perhaps the most insidious are those of mind and soul. How can you be the same person you once were after you’ve seen a child explode?
I didn’t think I had much chance of finding Greg — his last name is as common as his first — but I did, stumbling upon an interview he gave in 2007. So as of that date at least, 22 years after we met, “yet” had not yet come. Which gives me hope that maybe it never did or will.
On Memorial Day, we honor those who sacrificed their lives in America’s wars. This year, though, I’ll also be thinking of Greg and all those like him, keeping unwilling company with demons of sorrow and despair. Surely, it’s a bitter thing to die.
But sometimes, it is not much easier to live.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Strangha
Taps Across America, today at
Taps Across America, today at 3 PM your time.
On guitar, I'm thinking it's open strings except for the F # and A on the D string once
A A D
A D F#
A D F# A D F# A D F#
D F# A * this A is the fifth fret on the D string
F# D A
A A D
Story from the GREAT Steve Hartman https://www.cbsnews.com/video/taps-across-america-participants-prepare-f...
https://www.tapsacrossamerica.org/
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: jeff
Always felt bad for the vets
Always felt bad for the vets who came back from the hell of Korea and nobody gave a shit about their sacrifice or even knew where Korea was on the map. Can only imagine how that must have felt.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Racketinmyhead
(No subject)
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Druba
(No subject)
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: fishcane
Decoration Day
Decoration Day
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: dimethyllovebeam
a patient/ friend is my age,
a patient/ friend is my age, mid 50s, and is an Iraq/Afghan vet with severe ptsd. His sacrifice is 7 meds daily from the government. He's down from 11 with the help of weed, but the poor guy just can't take more than an hour of being around anyone and he has to leave for someplace quiet for the remainder of the day.
Whenever i meet a vet I always shake their hand and thank them for their sacrifice, no matter when they served. I did that when I met my friend, but he was quick to add / clarify that his sacrifice was for his country, not the government. And, as always, he said the real sacrifice was from the men/women who he fought beside and watched die.
Old, rich men start wars and young, poor men / women fight / die in them. It's funny how formulas of all kinds often change as better solutions are found, but not that one.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Druba
(No subject)
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: intentionally blank
> his sacrifice was for his
> his sacrifice was for his country, not the government
Holidays like today would be much more meaningful if the sacrifices weren't so linked to the dirty business of politicians and corporations.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: GDTRFB
I had to pay a visit to the
He passed in January 2020 following a long string of declining health issues from advanced age and I am glad that he did not witness or personally experience the ravages of COVID.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Strangha
I guess Racket missed Vice
I guess Racket missed Vice President Harris at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier today.
And I guess he missed this post from FAUX News about what to drink for "cheer" this weekend from the red, white, and blue drink choices.
CHEERS! Memorial Day Weekend: 2021 cocktail trends https://twitter.com/FoxNews/status/1398790005577846784
Nice to hear our President speak in such respectful terms today. We didn't have to hear about "loser" and "suckers" this year, only honor and valor and protecting democracy. Nice change.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: intentionally blank
> I guess Racket missed
> I guess Racket missed
He does that a lot.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Strangha
Nice Strawbud. Many came back
Nice Strawbud. Many came back and acted like they did nothing special. How wrong they were.
Yeah Mike, I hate the ideas of wars for oil, and whatever other stupid reasons they use to justify sending others off to fight. (Like a domino theory?) My Iraq-vet godson still suffers today, at age 42.
Nice pic, Noodler.