(I took this photograph in 2006, in Ashland, Wisconsin. The mural, painted by Kelly Meredith and Sue Martinsen, depicts veterans who were all local residents.)
Thanks to all veterans.
November 11, 2012
Veterans Day.
(I took this photograph in 2006, in Ashland, Wisconsin. The mural, painted by Kelly Meredith and Sue Martinsen, depicts veterans who were all local residents.)
Thanks to all veterans.
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101 comments:
"Absent Compamions!"
To all the past, present and future veterans, my thanks.
Also Armistice Day. The end of the First World War. The consequences of that war are forgotten but not gone.
Thanks to my fellow veterans, and especially to those who are in harm's way now.
All the way.
The best of the best.
PS Thank you, Ann.
Yes, thanks for fighting the good fight. May your beneficiaries be worthy of your deeds. May your sacrifice not be in vain.
"Thanks to my fellow veterans, and especially to those who are in harm's way now."
After Ft.Hood, maybe all our active service people are "in harm's way"?
So what say you? Terrorist attack or workplace violence?
Why not thank Veterans in a tangible way?
If you have the means, donate to an organization that helps veterans and active duty military.
The Wounded Warrior Project is a good one, but there are others that do good work.
I've always been grateful that Americans sign up to serve their country in the military.
That "grateful" turns to "guilt" right quick when they serve overseas in godforsaken war zones.
"After Ft.Hood, maybe all our active service people are "in harm's way"?
So what say you? Terrorist attack or workplace violence?"
I'll leave that discussion for another day. Today I am remembering comrades in arms and the times, good and bad, we had . . .
You're very welcome, Inga. But I still think you're someone who is worthless on the best day of your life.
Thanks more than words can say, to both the veterans and their families. Honor them by helping America be the shining city on a hill it was meant to be.
Thanks Dad! One of not so many WWII veterans left. In ten years, how many will there be?
Just a very few centenarians.
And right behind them will be the nonagenarians of Korea.
Just off the phone with my Dad. All my thanks and appreciation to retired military such as he and to active members everywhere.
Big Mike, you couldn't keep this thread honorable in the spirit of Veterans day? That's sad.
"Just a very few centenarians.
And right behind them will be the nonagenarians of Korea."
My dad, now 84, joined the Navy in WWII on his 18th birthday. The war ended a few months later much to his disappointment. I guess the God of War felt his disappointment because he got drafted into the Army for Korea. Ultimately got malaria and a medical discharge.
Good times . . .
Sorry if that felt off-topic, TWM, and I can surely see how it might be. It's just that, at least to me, that Ft.Hood fiasco, and our inability to EVER talk about it in such a way as to cut down on it ever happening again just hangs in my craw.
You didn't ask, but I think it was workplace violence which we Americans have far greater control over than terrorism.
Big Mike,
Don't be an a$$. I seldom agree with Inga, but I don't hate her for her opinions. Other than one or two around here, I would be willing to have a drink and toast to Absent Companions with any of you.
Thanks Inga, for your thoughts and your daughter's service.
I thank you on behalf of my daughter Drill Sargeant. Yesterday was the Marine's birthday, they got cake and had a "ball", her ball gown was a clean set of camies.
A friend invited myself and my daughter to Remembrance Day in London a few years ago. Westminster Abbey was packed with veterans. We got to sit with the RA Medical Corps. They take the day more seriously there, although the average Brit in the midlands probably doesn't know what it means. They don't teach about Churchill in many schools. The Queen placed a wreath on the Cenotaph outside but we were inside.
Drill Sgt, Absent companions.
Before shipping off to Europe, Dad was one of the troops dealing with race riots in Detroit. He said the city-born troops were a real hazard 'cause they didn't know firearm protocol like his own Iowa-born self did. Then he went off to Northern Ireland, and England. Princess Elizabeth waved to him once.
I'm a Vietnam era draftee. There are people who thank me for my service and I accept it. There are people from whom I will not accept their thanks because assuming they were around back then, they would have been screaming "baby killer" in my face, or spitting on me when I my back was turned.
The day may be honorable, Inga, but you aren't.
Sorry, Drill Sergeant, but there it is.
First Veterans Day without a living WWI vet.
God bless 'em all.
Both of my parents are veterans, and they would never have met other than in the Army. I don't know how much they helped with the war effort, not as much as many many people, but I do feel that I owe my life in a special way to the Army. I wish there had never been the war that was WWII, and I'm sure the world is largely populated with people who are here in place of others who would be here but for that war. In my case, I am certain that I am one of those people.
Big Mike, my brother was a Navy Corpsman, same as my daughter. He served in Vietnam and survived, same as you, I'm glad to say he doesn't share your attitude.
@Inga, his mistake.
@Prof Althouse,
We baby-boomers grew up in an post-war America unlike any other since the Civil War --- almost every man was a veteran, and a good chunk of the women, too.
Since every one of them had a story to tell, I guess they communally decided it was time to move on and stop boring each other with their war stories. The fact that many of those stories involved horror & suffering that no human being much less a 19 year old boy should ever go through might have had something to do with the desire to move on. As I've said before, we sadly never got a coherent narrative out of my father's service in the 1st Armor Div. in WWII, and I think that was by his choice.
They were a whole generation tempered by war. For better or worse (and I vote worse), we are a different country now.
Big Mike, I know what you mean, having joined the AF in 1969 and listened to more aholes than I can count when I went through Seattle and LA in 1970 in uniform. Even heard it again when I went to Germany in 1971 (ended up stationed with the Army after all - my version of irony). I am glad of the kudos given to our troops today and recently, but I don't believe most of the people over 60 who aren't vets mean a word of it - just political expedience. I usually just say, thanks, though. and let it go at that. Some things just can't be changed, so I try not to tilt too hard or too often at them.
@Forthenri, I used to feel the way you do.
And I'm glad that there is respect for today's soldiers, sailors, and airmen.
It's Armistice Day in France, and it's big to-do over there.
I've got two cousins in the French Army (One did a tour in Bosnia & one a tour in Afghanistan). My maternal grandparents got introduced because my great-grandfathers were buds as officers in WWI in the French Army, and one had a son (also an officer) and the other had a daughter, so the match was made.
Pour Honneur et Patrie.
Something I wrote earlier on my FB page(yeah I have one, don't be a hater) to go along with the video linked below. Ignore the narrative if you want, but watch the video, it's a good one.
"Something different for Veteran's Day. I joined the Air Force in 1980 which was about the time attitudes were beginning to change towards our military (basically from Reagan forward), so I never experienced the ambivalence and sometimes outright hostility that Vietnam vets had to deal with when returning home. Although I have to say Cold War vets are often ignored despite the fact that the Soviet Union was held at bay and ultimately defeated due to the efforts of warriors who stood ready to fight but fortunately never had to do so. It's cyclical though, this understanding that the citizenry has of the sacrifices our military makes for our country. It was at its height during World War II but then slowly tapered off during Korea and virtually disappeared during Vietnam, turning around I believe once service became voluntary. It's nice to believe it will stay, but our nation is changing and it can disappear again, so it's important to keep this going. To never forget that "people sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf." Women, too, now. So it's important to not only thank a vet now (and frankly every chance you get), but to also pass that tradition down to your children. Because to use another quote, those who forget history are doomed to repeat it."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=x2L3skZ7FEw
To my fellow vets
and those who wish us well –
thanks and you're welcome.
The rest can go to hell.
YoungHegelian said...
It's Armistice Day in France, and it's big to-do over there.
And in the UK. They understand the meaning of "Remembrance Day", beyond being a bank holiday.
Red Poppies, Flanders Field, white feathers, etc
The UK Army does several things better than Yanks, and one of them is the Regimental system. One of the by products is that each regt recruits from a county or groups of counties and if, as in the case now of most of the Brit Army, a Bn is inactivated, the colours go to the local cathedral, where they hang in the rafters. In York Cathedral, off the Nave, there is a memorial to the Yorkshire Regiment. In WWI, they raised 11 battlions. Each of perhaps 600-700 men. All in all, about 65 thousand men served in the unit during the war. of those 65 thousand, the casualty book there in the Cathedral, has the names of the more that 20 thousand wounded and the 6500 dead. All from one county.
One doesn't understand European history unless you have seen the granite obilisks in every tiny village in France, Germany and England with the lists of their dead...
Inga, in your younger days, and mine, I believe you would have been in the front lines to have spit in my face for my military service. My take is that you have only respected, and used, the military since your daughter joined it.
Though, it was an honor to serve. And I thank all of you for giving me the opportunity.
I have a deep gratitude for vets, because I know I couldn't serve. (Physically. So flatfooted/hammertoed, I would have fallen over injured on day 1 of basic training. Even at my youngest and healthiest and strongest.)
My dad was in Her Majesty's Royal Navy, on the HMS Vengeance, "We strike! We cover!" His older brother, an Oxford man, was a fighter pilot who survived but none of his college buddies did.
My SIL's dad was a fighter pilot who way outlived the stats for the kinds of missions he flew. Even shot down and escaped enemy territory.
BIL's dad ran the locomotive division of GM during the war effort and was running that factory around the clock meeting the industrial manufacturing needs of the armed forces.
That generation of heroes is mostly gone out of my life.
So now I look to the young heroes, and I am blessed to serve them as a VA SCO when they come and enroll in college (or their survivors/dependents do). I don't like the paperwork crap of the job or dealing with that bureaucratic nightmare that is the VA, but I love working with the vets themselves. I assign myself as their faculty advisor whenever possible (if I can do a good job advising in their program).
I always thank them (their parent/spouse) for their service to our country.
XRay, you and Big Mike you assume much.
@Inga, we read what you write, and we certainly do have your number.
Well, thank you, all who have served. It's more than I have done, and you should be proud.
I restrict my criticisms of Inga to her politics, and would never criticize her person.
Besides, in a way she voted for Romney, and that should be acknowledged and appreciated here. I do.
(You didn't back out of your vote for Jill, did you?)
That's a beautiful mural. I love that it's regular people, from the local community, being depicted, not some idealized comic book hero image.
The detail is really beautiful and that is an amazing accomplishment, given that it's painted on brick.
It's incredibly sad that everything ends up being politicized, even a Veterans day thread. It's sad that we actually hate complete strangers on an online forum because of their politics. It's sad that we make enemies out of each other, that we forget we are all Americans.
Happy Veterans Day.
My Dad served in a field hospital in the Battle of The Bulge. Never talked about it. What was there to say? All that horror. I can still remember his Eisenhower jacket that he wore on weekends for years after the war. The souvenir Luger in a dresser draw. And the way he looked at people with numbers on their arm, of which there were quite a few in Brooklyn, after the war. That's America to me.
I don't think Inga is at all the kind of person who would have spit on a returning Vietnam Vet.
From what I know about those kinds of soulless people they don't become nurses or raise children who go into the armed forces.
Dr. Grumpy (a blogging neurologist whose blog consists mainly of humorous -- pseudonymous, of course -- accounts of encounters with his patients) today offers this account of Sergeant Stubby, a stray dog that ended up serving (seriously serving) in the Great War. An amazing story.
My Dad served in a field hospital in the Battle of The Bulge
My father-in-law was at the Battle of The Bulge. Didn't talk much about it either. Wounded. They patched him up and sent him back in.
I hate it when people mix up Veterans Day with Memorial Day. Especially when my family does it, although I always get a kick saying (in my best british) "I'm not dead yet".
note the gold stars at the top of the painted wall, signifying that those in the mural did not come home.
Absent companions.
We celebrated today by cooking two meals for one our deployed friend's family. Put together a care package for him. Friday I'll see another friend off for tour down range.
Inga, spare me the "all Americans" speech. There are some I'd go out of my way to urinate on. Jane Fonda and her ex come to mind.
Inga, appreciate your daughter's service even if she is a jarhead.
Absent companions.
We celebrated today by cooking two meals for one our deployed friend's family. Put together a care package for him. Friday I'll see another friend off for tour down range.
Inga, spare me the "all Americans" speech. There are some I'd go out of my way to urinate on. Jane Fonda and her ex come to mind.
Bob, I'm an American, I never spit on my brother when he came home from Vietnam, or my boyfriend of two years when he got back from the Gulf of Tonkin, while he was in the Navy on the USS Hancock. Nor did I spit on the veterans I took care of at the VA hospital in Mlwaukee.
If you want to vent your spleens on anti Vietnam War protesters who spit on the troops, you'll have to go elsewhere.
My Dad, long gone now, did not mention his days as a Lt. in the Marines in WWII as we grew up (five kids). After I did my own stint, though, he talked to me about Okinawa, how he and his squad had to cross fields slowly in the daytime while they tested the ground with bayonets to find the spider holes, about tossing in a grenade when he found one and glimpsed the Japanese soldier hding inside, and the day he was picked off a sniper (serious head wound - blind for weeks), the arduous evacuation and recovery, appearing before the military disability retirement board and the rest. I think he worried about what God would say to him at the end, and I still pray for him. Thanks to all vets, past and present, from the bottom of my heart. And I don't hate you, Inga, but screw your attempt to cast my memories of the 60's and 70's as political. I earned the right to say what I damn well please today, of all days.
Forthenri, my comments were not directed at you.
After reading through these comments, I am moved at the emotion so many of us still have about our long-ago service. Ann, perhaps a separate topic on how the Vietnam-era vets feel as they watch today's military men and women come home would be interesting. I for one am so pleased at their reception even as I doubt so much of its veracity - and I admit to a bit of envy (I don't like that - I wish I were a better man).
Thanks, Inga, and I appreciate your thoughts about vets today.
And Forthenri, it's not your memories or even Big Mike's that are politicizing his thread, it the ASSUMPTION that because one isn't a conservative that they were the types that spit on returning soldiers.
Your memories are real, I remember seeing that happen on the news and it WAS shameful.
Inga-
Thanks to your daughter for her service. I am grateful for people like her.
Does Inga have to infest this thread too? Fuck her.
Inga - anyone who votes Democrat is my enemy.
Dear Veteran: I am liberalism.
I started WWI, WWII, and the Vietnam War, but I do not like war. Really! But moreover, I really dislike the wars that "compassionate conservative" George Bush started. He should not have won the election. Those should have been Al Gore's righteous wars. The wars that would stabilize the ME.
I do have to admit, it was fun counting American bodies while that asshole Bush was in charge. Of course, as soon as I got my guy, Obama in there, I stopped all that stupid stuff. No more women hanging out at the Bush ranch, we put a stop to all that business.
Now, you may wonder about the lives in Benghazi. That was a mistake, really. What could I do? My compassion and predators had failed to stop the feet on the ground. And I couldn't allow my guy, Obama, be smeared by that. Fortunately, I have the press on my side.
Meanwhile, my minions will pretend that they actually care about our guys on the ground. While my guy, Obama, plays brinkmanship with the Republicans over taxes, not that I care, I've been screwing over the middle class for decades, but it's fun to stick the knife in them. The press always twists it a little.
And then there are my pawns, like Inga here, who professes anything I want her to. Yeah, Inga, pretend you actually have original thoughts. I'm programming you, and it's good to see you ought there yapping your fool head off. Don't worry, I have lots more out there like you.
Yours,
Liberalism.
Alex,
With the best will in the world: Please stop talking. You do us all a disservice by speaking of anyone "infesting" this thread. We fought at least one ghastly war against a foe who liked to call some human beings vermin. I thought we'd won that one. Evidently not.
I will continue to speak of the leftist infestation in here until Althouse bans me.
leslyn - you filth stop spewing your hatful garbage. You're just projecting your own evil.
"Ann, perhaps a separate topic on how the Vietnam-era vets feel as they watch today's military men and women come home would be interesting. I for one am so pleased at their reception even as I doubt so much of its veracity - and I admit to a bit of envy (I don't like that - I wish I were a better man)."
Again I suggest you watch this video to concerning the Vietnam vets-post Vietnam vets situation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=x2L3skZ7FEw
Dante- that was excelleent!
Dante, delusional recreating American history can be fun aka creative whining.
And continually whining about the MSM is gonna make Obama's election all the more enjoyable, if possible ... and yet this blog unreadable.
Hopefully, Althouse will cut down on her ad nauseam disingenuous/sarcastic con whining from critical mass to around 50%.
All good con whining in moderation.
Indeed as Althouse and her flock may have already run out of Kleenex!
Cry me a river ...
>
As a veteran this thread perfectly reflects Althouse discombobulated, con chicken hawk flock.
Michelle Dulak Thomson said...
Alex,
With the best will in the world: Please stop talking. You do us all a disservice by speaking of anyone "infesting" this thread. We fought at least one ghastly war against a foe who liked to call some human beings vermin. I thought we'd won that one. Evidently not.
Let him go. He provides a useful service. Besides I don't think he meant vermin to be the same as 'subhuman'.
Did you Alex?
The left thinks that anyone who disagrees with their catholicism is subhuman.
Just last week Joe Bidens' son received a direct commission in the Naval Reserve as a public relations specialist. Now there's a veteran.
depicts veterans who were all local residents.
So they were defending for socialism, the highest most refined and excellent of all forms of human government.
Agreed.
And there went my biting remark so cogent it sways a nation back to its senses. Now it just sound like a crackpot. Every argument I formulate I'm frustrated because I then think, no, they'd want socialism too and here's why. Example after example after example and so on to the hundreds. I've allowed my thoughts to go around you like a cloud so I can see with your eyes, the room full of lesbians did that, the rolls or screaming at midnight as the results scrolled by matching the waves of noise, having been so quiet up to that moment how could any of us not notice that? That strange unnatural screaming drew me into their room and I've been in there ever since.
Government is their invisible husband. I think
It's how they get theirs. I think
They can raise babies, carry the burden, and things are evened out. I think
They are just one single room of just a few women and that was just one type of that kind of situation. I think
I also think too those veterans up there would rather women have husbands than sexes be separate, I don't think they fought and defended for that. But that was then and this is now. And everybody I can see is happy.
For now.
It's sad that we make enemies out of each other ...
@Inga, if you're still checkingin on this thread, you picked the fight with me, not me with you. If you don't want me unloading on you then you should have been civil when you had the chance.
Forthenri, it's not your memories or even Big Mike's that are politicizing his thread, it the ASSUMPTION that because one isn't a conservative that they were the types that spit on returning soldiers.
Why shouldn't we assume that Progressive = person who spat on returning soldiers? Based on your comments on threads leading up to the election you assume that
Conservative = racist
Conservative = woman-hating anti-abortionist
Conservative = despoiler of the environment
Conservative = desire to starve the children of the poor
... and on. Let me know when you're ready to grow up.
shiloh,
Careful who you call a "chickenhawk," you little weasel.
Or come up and say it directly to my CIB.
One wonders where were all of Althouse chicken hawks when turdblosson and other con scumbags were calling disabled Vietnam War veteran, Max Cleland, a traitor and unAmerican? Rhetorical.
"One wonders where were all of Althouse chicken hawks when turdblosson and other con scumbags were calling disabled Vietnam War veteran, Max Cleland, a traitor and unAmerican? Rhetorical."
Shiloh you putz, veterans are not immune from criticism, especially from other veterans. Every vet respects the service of every other vet, but what they do after that . . . how they honor that service or don't . . . is fair game.
Did anyone here on Althouse say a word against treatment of Tammy Duckworth by that disgusting human being Joe Walsh?
Big Mike perhaps you don't remember the sequence of last evenings comments here and who was civil and who wasn't. All the veterans I know are nothing like you, thank goodness.
I didn't think this blog's comments sections could get any more angry or hateful before the election, I was wrong.
@Inga, sorry you have long-term memory problems. My memory goes back to the days you first appeared as a commenter on Althouse threads. You think we should bury the hatchet for one day on your terms?
Ain't gonna happen. As I said, you picked the fight with me, not me with you.
"I didn't think this blog's comments sections could get any more angry or hateful before the election, I was wrong."
For God's sake, Igna, quit whining about how "angry and hateful" people are here. I can take your liberal nonsense, but jeez give us all a break on that at least. Whether it's real or a game you like to play doesn't matter. It's like fingernails on a chalkboard to me, and no doubt many others.
Childish, name calling con, TWM, is angry his boy Willard lost.
I feel your pain!
@Inga/
I'll admit I haven't read every comment Walsh made during the course of the campaign, but those I have read--however in-artful they were--and they were--I read to be a charge that Duckworth's campaign was devoid of policy substance and that the entire thrust of her campaign was an attempt to appeal to the sympathy vote--an approach which frustrated Walsh, which he saw as essentially unethical because when a campaign is successfully run in such a manner it makes ANY criticism of one's opponents policies, however valid, seem somehow "unworthy" as a personal attack rather than an attack on one's policies--and as such, is essentially unfair/unethical.
Were that Walsh had been more articulate..
TWM, the whining by you conservatives since the election is worse than fingernails on chalkboard, don't you hear yourselves? It's pathetic, you demean yourselves.
And worse to bring it onto a Veterans Day thread, shameful.
"Childish, name calling con, TWM, is angry his boy Willard lost.
I feel your pain!"
I doubt you feel anything, shiloh. Certainly you don't think anything. As to who is angry, I think you win on that count. Your anger is palpable and hasn't ebbed one bit even though your side won. How do you live with that much anger in your gut? It must be horrible.
As to me I'm not angry. I was surprised. And am disappointed. From losing, yes, but mostly because in so many of my fellow Americans.
But mostly I am resigned to our fate now. And planning - no working - to being in the best position I can when it arrives. The sooner the better I say, because it's going to take a LOT of pain to turn the country around. The Bush tax cuts should go. All of them. But they should also include doing away with the Hollywood tax cuts and deductions for home mortgage interest over $250,000. That will make sure all those blue states and rich liberals pay their fair share. Let the Sequestration go through too and lay off a few hundred thousand federal workers and contractors. Let the blue stat models die a angry,painful death when those public work pensions collapse.
It will be tough, but though love is what people need now.
Everyone gets their fair share. Of pain.
as per TWM's blog profile:
so don’t take it too seriously. I know I don’t.
Indeed!
The prosecution rests.
"TWM, the whining by you conservatives since the election is worse than fingernails on chalkboard, don't you hear yourselves? It's pathetic, you demean yourselves.
And worse to bring it onto a Veterans Day thread, shameful."
Well, first of all, Veteran's Day was yesterday and I saved my complaints for today. Secondly, there is a difference between discussing where we think the country is headed. Why we think so many people made such a big mistake. And why in the end it's all going to be a painful experience. Than whining because people are mean to you.
Seriously grow up, woman. How you manage to get through a day in this tough world is beyond me.
"as per TWM's blog profile:
so don’t take it too seriously. I know I don’t.
Indeed!
The prosecution rests."
Taken out of context like everything you post. I never took my blog too seriously, you putz.
TWM's angry/childish name calling continues ~ shocking!
"TWM's angry/childish name calling continues ~ shocking!"
Did I hurt your feelings, Shiloh?
Althouse, please give TWM a hug! TIA
TWM, I got through more than thirty years of nursing, I dealt with life and death and suffering on a daily basis. I think I'm tough enough for this world and certainly for commenters in this blog.
"TWM, I got through more than thirty years of nursing, I dealt with life and death and suffering on a daily basis. I think I'm tough enough for this world and certainly for commenters in this blog."
Glad to hear it. Now "Nurse Up" and quit complaining when someone is mean to you.
There's going to be disagreement here. Sometimes heated disagreement. Just because you won doesn't mean it invalidates the other side's arguments. To quote Captain Mal Reynolds in Firefly - "May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one."
Sometimes people will go a tad too far and call names. My God I called Shiloh a "putz" of all things. The horror.
He seems to have survived though and so will you.
This a day to honor our veterans. Their service. Their sacrifice. The ones who have gone before and the ones that are serving right now. May they all come home safe to the families that love them.
They keep us safe. We must do all we can to keep them safe.
TWM, I'm here for the ad nauseam, con whining entertainment value which never disappoints.
Childish, passive/aggressive words typed by an angry/depressed conservative on a keyboard is inconsequential. In fact, it may help said depressed con from goin' postal! :)
Good Inga - I hope I ruined your Veterans Day!
My dad was on an LST half way across the Pacific, for the invasion of Japan. His combat job was to drive one of those Higgins boats up on the shore. The captain unsealed their orders when the atomic bomb was dropped. He would have probably have been killed as almost every American involved in the invasion of Japan would have been.
I would never have been born except for the Atomic Bomb.
He is still alive and I loe him.
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