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Thoughts of those left behind this memorial day weekend


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It's been 35 years or so since the draft ended. It's been a all volunteer gray military service. We use the term gray, to express the sense of the "team" all the uniform services make working together as one.

A volunteer military service system as successful as it has been, has not been with out cost...the loss of human lives.

As a 20 year veteran, I celebrate this weekend in the memory of those who were left behind, and could not be here amoung us to share in the freedoms they have safe guarded.

The losses have been many, close and dear, but never forgotton.

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A Sad Thought.................My friends that made it home from 'NAM are now dying what I guess one would consider, a normal passing of life. It doesn't make it any easier, still hurts..................I still miss them and always will, My Brothers in Arms................We should all be thankful that we live in the GREATEST COUNTRY in the World...............Bar none.............."Teach Your Children Well"..............

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Thank you Buckster and Speakerfritz and all you other forum veterans for your service to this country. From my grandfather in WWI to my friend Peter who fought in the first Gulf War I salute you. I will think of all of you tommorow and through the years.

Chuck

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A true heart felt thank you to all of you that have/will defended our freedom in this country. Tommyboy, I just want to say a special thanks to you and your wife. We all look forward to the day you guys come home to stay.

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Speakerfritz,

A Thank You to you and all of those who have and are currently serving, with prayers they return home safely to their families. Appreciation also to the families of those who serve for the sacrifices they make while their loved ones are away from home.

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  • 3 years later...

A Sad Thought.................My friends that made it home from 'NAM are now dying what I guess one would consider, a normal passing of life. It doesn't make it any easier, still hurts..................I still miss them and always will, My Brothers in Arms................We should all be thankful that we live in the GREATEST COUNTRY in the World...............Bar none.............."Teach Your Children Well"..............

In Memory

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never met OB but I am sure we would have been friends.

You would have liked him he is a good man, I think about him often.

I was reading about memorial day this morning, like many things I had no idea of it's history. I copyed a little just to give an idea of the history.

At the end of the Civil War, communities set aside a day to mark the end of the war or as a memorial to those who had died. Some of the places creating an early memorial day include Sharpsburg, Maryland, located near Antietam Battlefield; Charleston, South Carolina; Boalsburg, Pennsylvania; Carbondale, Illinois; Columbus, Mississippi; many communities in Vermont; and some two dozen other cities and towns. These observances coalesced around Decoration Day, honoring the Confederate dead, and the several Confederate Memorial Days.

According to Professor David Blight of the Yale University History Department, the first memorial day was observed by formerly enslaved black people at the Washington Race Course (today the location of Hampton Park) in Charleston, South Carolina. The race course had been used as a temporary Confederate prison camp for captured Union soldiers in 1865, as well as a mass grave for Union soldiers who died there. Immediately after the cessation of hostilities, formerly enslaved people exhumed the bodies from the mass grave and reinterred them properly with individual graves. They built a fence around the graveyard with an entry arch and declared it a Union graveyard. The work was completed in only ten days. On May 1, 1865, the Charleston newspaper reported that a crowd of up to ten thousand, mainly black residents, including 2800 children, proceeded to the location for included sermons, singing, and a picnic on the grounds, thereby creating the first Decoration Day.[2]

The first known observance was in Waterloo, New York on May 5, 1866, and each year thereafter. The friendship between General John Murray, a distinguished citizen of Waterloo, and General John A. Logan, who helped bring attention to the event nationwide, was likely a factor in the holiday's growth. On May 5, 1868, in his capacity as commander-in-chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, a veterans' organization, Logan issued a proclamation that "Decoration Day" be observed nationwide.[3] It was observed for the first time on May 30 of the same year; the date was chosen because it was not the anniversary of a battle. The tombs of fallen Union soldiers were decorated in remembrance.

Many of the states of the U.S. South refused to celebrate Decoration Day, due to lingering hostility towards the Union Army and also because there were relatively few veterans of the Union Army who were buried in the South. A notable exception was Columbus, Mississippi, which on April 25, 1866, at its Decoration Day commemorated both the Union and Confederate casualties buried in its cemetery.[4]

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Flags flying at Fort Logan National Cemetery during Memorial Day, 2006

The alternative name of "Memorial Day" was first used in 1882. It did not become more common until after World War II, and was not declared the official name by Federal law until 1967

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  • 11 months later...

Let Them In
by John Gorka

"Let Them In was made into song by John Gorka from a poem found in a hospital in
the Philippines during World War II. The nurse that found the poem kept it all
these years until the recent war brought out all the memorabilia.

Luckily, her daughter sent a copy to John"

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

Let them in, Peter
They are very tired
Give them couches where the angels sleep
And light those fires

Let them wake whole again
To brand new dawns
Fired by the sun not wartime's
Bloody guns

May their peace be deep
Remember where the broken bodies lie
God knows how young they were
To have to die
God knows how young they were
To have to die

So give them things they like
Let them make some noise
Give dance hall bands not golden harps
To these our boys

And let them love, Peter
For they've had no time
They should have trees and bird songs
And hills to climb

The taste of summer in a ripened pear
And girls sweet as meadow wind
With flowing hair

And tell them how they are missed
But say not to fear
It's gonna be alright
With us down here

Let them in, Peter
Let them in, Peter
Let them in, Peter

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The finest men I have ever had the pleasure of knowing were Veterans.I think of my step father though gone 25 plus years.He fought at D-day Battle of the Bulge and Batstonge among others.I thank God for my 20 year old son A Marine who left his family behind to serve in Afghanistan.As long as i have breath in my body I will thank them everyday for my freedoms.I know when I leave this world my last thoughts will be of my family and the hundreds of men who were cut from a different cloth.Such good men and women..

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