A reminder

[Ragnar]

As Memorial Day Nears, a Single Image That Continues to Haunt - NYTimes.com

Taken by the photographer Todd Heisler from his 2005 award-winning series for The Rocky Mountain News, “Jim Comes Home” — which documents the return and burial of Second Lt. Jim Cathey of the Marines, who lost his life in Iraq — the photo shows his pregnant widow, Katherine, lying on an air mattress in front of his coffin. She’s staring at her laptop, listening to songs that remind her of Jim. Her expression is vacant, her grief almost palpable.

It is impossible to be unmoved by the juxtaposition of the eternal stone-faced warrior and the disheveled modern military wife-turned-widow, him rigid in his dress uniform, her on the floor in her blanket nest, wearing glasses and a baggy T-shirt, him nearly concealed by shadow while the pale blue light from the computer screen illuminates her like God’s own grace.

...

Two parents lost their son, a wife lost her husband, an unborn child lost his father, and a handful of average citizens saw just how seriously the military treats a fallen warrior’s final trip home.

 

[old navy]

I live right off Route One and I-95 in Northern Virginia and get to see and hear the thousands of bikes participating in Rolling Thunder. Four days of celebrating the reason we are free. My wife and I pay our respects at the Quantico National Cemetary every year and she took a picture of this poem today among many others.

Will you meet up with Warrior? I'm sure the place is huge, just didn't know if you two made plans.

That is a beautiful poem.

He's probably doing motorcycle stuff. I don't have one. I owned one when I was 21 years old which is the exact wrong age to own one.

 

[BDBoop]

I live right off Route One and I-95 in Northern Virginia and get to see and hear the thousands of bikes participating in Rolling Thunder. Four days of celebrating the reason we are free. My wife and I pay our respects at the Quantico National Cemetary every year and she took a picture of this poem today among many others.

Will you meet up with Warrior? I'm sure the place is huge, just didn't know if you two made plans.

That is a beautiful poem.

He's probably doing motorcycle stuff. I don't have one. I owned one when I was 21 years old which is the exact wrong age to own one.

I should think so! I'll never know. I've always been a coward on the death front.

 

[hortysir]

 

[hortysir]

TAPS

Day is done, gone the sun,
From the lake, from the hills, from the sky;
All is well, safely rest, God is nigh.
Fading light, dims the sight,
And a star gems the sky, gleaming bright.
From afar, drawing nigh, falls the night.
Thanks and praise, for our days,
'Neath the sun, 'neath the stars, neath the sky;
As we go, this we know, God is nigh.
Sun has set, shadows come,
Time has fled, Scouts must go to their beds
Always true to the promise that they made.
While the light fades from sight,
And the stars gleaming rays softly send,
To thy hands we our souls, Lord, commend.

 

[SFC Ollie]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ky2WKqmrnnI]IN FLANDERS FIELDS - Anthony Hutchcroft - YouTube[/ame]


OK You guys did it. You brought a tear to this old sergeants eye......

 

[BDBoop]

IN FLANDERS FIELDS - Anthony Hutchcroft - YouTube


OK You guys did it. You brought a tear to this old sergeants eye......

This thread, posting with the people who served, has made Memorial Day more real to me than it ever was before.

Better late than never, I guess.

 

[SFC Ollie]

IN FLANDERS FIELDS - Anthony Hutchcroft - YouTube


OK You guys did it. You brought a tear to this old sergeants eye......

This thread, posting with the people who served, has made Memorial Day more real to me than it ever was before.

Better late than never, I guess.

I hope to get some of our ceremonies on video. Which will be difficult since I'll be at the podium most of the time... But we'll see what i can get......

 

[BDBoop]

What a sobering site.

http://militarytimes.com/valor/

 

[hortysir]

Army Pfc. Joshua L. Jetton

 

[Kooshdakhaa]

Let us not forget...

The purpose of Memorial Day is to honor those who DIED serving their country in the U.S. Armed Forces.

Those who died.

 

[hortysir]

Let us not forget...

The purpose of Memorial Day is to honor those who DIED serving their country in the U.S. Armed Forces.

DIED.

Intentionally emphasizing that?
Why?

 

[Kooshdakhaa]

Let us not forget...

The purpose of Memorial Day is to honor those who DIED serving their country in the U.S. Armed Forces.

DIED.

Intentionally emphasizing that?
Why?

Because a lot of people are talking about Veterans and military service in general. We have Veteran's Day to honor them. This is about those who died in the service of their country.

That's what the day is about, what's wrong with emphasizing that?

 

[hortysir]

Let us not forget...

The purpose of Memorial Day is to honor those who DIED serving their country in the U.S. Armed Forces.

DIED.

Intentionally emphasizing that?
Why?

Because a lot of people are talking about Veterans and military service in general. We have Veteran's Day to honor them. This is about those who died in the service of their country.

That's what the day is about, what's wrong with emphasizing that?

Where? Which post? Who?

I think that's obvious. Why do think someone doesn't, and who named you instructor?

 

[SFC Ollie]

Let us not forget...

The purpose of Memorial Day is to honor those who DIED serving their country in the U.S. Armed Forces.

DIED.

Intentionally emphasizing that?
Why?

Because a lot of people are talking about Veterans and military service in general. We have Veteran's Day to honor them. This is about those who died in the service of their country.

That's what the day is about, what's wrong with emphasizing that?

Why do you think you see so many posts with graves and songs like Flanders Fields?

I think we know what the day is for. I myself will be the MC of 3 different ceremonies tomorrow, two of them in Grave yards....

 

[Kooshdakhaa]

Intentionally emphasizing that?
Why?

Because a lot of people are talking about Veterans and military service in general. We have Veteran's Day to honor them. This is about those who died in the service of their country.

That's what the day is about, what's wrong with emphasizing that?

Why do you think you see so many posts with graves and songs like Flanders Fields?

I think we know what the day is for. I myself will be the MC of 3 different ceremonies tomorrow, two of them in Grave yards....

Well, I wasn't speaking to those of you who know what the day is for. I am speaking to those who don't. You can go back through the posts yourself and see that there are several that do not depict the fallen warrior, but rather just veterans in general, or disabled veterans.

Excuse me for standing up for those who died in the service of their country. There are lots of people who would give anything if their soldier was only disabled, or just a veteran of foreign war who made it home again.

I am not putting down those surviving veterans, only saying this day is to honor those who did not survive. A whole lot of people don't understand that.

 

[SFC Ollie]

Not enough posts off topic of Memorial Day to worry about. And so what if a few people thank a veteran. There is nothing wrong with that.

Last memorial day I went back up to the two Cemeteries where we do services to raise the flags back to full staff. We send two people to do this. One plays to the colors on a boom box and the other takes care of the flag. Well at the one cemetery we did the flag and saluted and as we were leaving a lady looked at us and said, "Thank you, my Dad heard that." So thinaking a vet really isn't out of the ordinary for Memorial Day. In most cases it is a Veteran who placed those flags in the cemetery, My post placed 700 of them.....

 

[Dr Grump]

Hope Obama or Biden don't forget that the veterans they celebrate on memorial day aren't in attendance.

You are at a whole new level of douche...Go start your own thread

 

[jillian]

Hope Obama or Biden don't forget that the veterans they celebrate on memorial day aren't in attendance.

You are at a whole new level of douche...Go start your own thread

He's been kind of Obama -deranged for a while

 

[SFC Ollie]