Memorial Day 2011

MEMORIAL DAY 2011We each have our own thoughts and memories that provide a context to this Memorial Day weekend. All Americans share the responsibility to remember and to honor those who made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedoms and in defense of freedom around the world. Whether lost to us in direct combat, during clandestine operations or in support of those missions, their memory must be cherished or this nation will be unworthy of their sacrifice. You will be unworthy of their sacrifice. The monuments that we erect are to stand as reminders of sacrifice and not as substitutes for personal reflection on duty, honor and appreciation.

The families who have lost a cherished son, daughter, father or mother need no reminder. We, combat veterans, need no reminder. Thoughts now of those dead in wars long past are no longer accompanied by a personal memory. Today brief media glimpses at the pain that remains with families as another American killed in Afghanistan, Iraq or some other distant place is honored and buried must provide a reminder to all Americans. The freedom we enjoy today is the legacy of the blood and sacrifice of the heroes in all our wars, past and present.

"you must reflect that it was by courage, sense of duty, and a keen feeling of honour in action that men were enabled to win all this, and that no personal failure in an enterprise could make them consent to deprive their country of their valour, but they laid it at her feet as the most glorious contribution that they could offer. For this offering of their lives made in common by them all they each of them individually received that renown which never grows old, and for a sepulchre, not so much that in which their bones have been deposited, but that noblest of shrines wherein their glory is laid up to be eternally remembered upon every occasion on which deed or story shall call for its commemoration. For heroes have the whole earth for their tomb;" (Pericles 430 BCE)

The children in the photo are the sons of friends, a non-commissioned officer and his wife serving in the Army's 10th Mountain Division. The respect, innocently presented in their salute as our flag was being lowered one afternoon recently, may remind us of what values we bring to our own children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews and neighbors by our deeds and our words. What have we said to our own about the meaning of Memorial Day. What have we done to show them that we remember and honor.

"However horrible the incidents of war may be, the soldier who is called upon to offer and to give his life for his country is the noblest development of mankind." Douglas MacArthur, 12 May, 1962, West Point, NY

Memorial Day 2010

Remember what Memorial Day was meant to honor and DO SOMETHING to make it meaningful and respectful. As I write this I know that someone will have died in the service of our country by the time you read it and a child, a father, a mother, a brother, a sister, a family, a friend will mourn - forever. Do something. The lapel pin, the rhetoric or the yellow ribbon on the car mean absolutely nothing. Do something to honor the sacrifice.

Another Retrospective

I received a notice yesterday announcing the premier of "Inside the Vietnam War" on the National Geographic Channel onMonday, February 18 at 8 PM EST. The program is three hours long.

Maybe I should just trust the proponents of this program but I have seen too many Vietnam retrospectives that simply p---- me off. In everything I have seen as time has passed there seems to be a need by these "historians" to give the vast number of non-veteran, baby-boomers who protested, evaded the draft or simply enjoyed the good life at home a "feel-good" sense of approval. Their protest, evasion or indifference has become an essential part of these productions because Vietnam was the "wrong war" or because of the My Lai atrocities or tales of fabrications of body counts or whatever. The narrations always point to the "big picture." The in-country portion invariably shows the same napalm run over a seemingly peaceful village, the naked child running from conflict and the early stages of the Tet Offensive. Of course, there are the interviews with troops who suffer from PTSD. My view or the conclusions of others on the "big picture" or the politics are not relevant to my views here.
It seems that it has taken 60 years to present, truthfully and dramatically, the bravery, integrity and selflessness during combat of the World War II grunts. A visitor to the magazine section at any bookstore will find multiple shelves reporting the battles and heroics of the Civil War and World War II. You may find a bi-monthly magazine on Vietnam. Maybe it will take a like period of time for the retrospectives or documentaries or motion pictures to pick up on the fact that the men, draftees or volunteers, who fought in the jungles of Vietnam have their own singular, monumental story. Those who fought all know some of those stories and those of the nurses and doctors, of those on the rivers and off the coast, of the chopper pilots and gunners, of the close air support, et al. The only venue for these stories now seems to be the scattered, almost anonymous, Internet web sites sought out primarily by other veterans.

The men and women now fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq are now rightfully the focus of the public's interest. And there have been some good productions from Iraq on television. Even now, however, the fickle great-American-public seems to be losing interest in these combat experiences. "Hamburger Hill," like "Pork Chop Hill" before it, presented some of the best qualities of the veteran in combat. That snapshot is overwhelmed, however, by these supposedly historical documentaries. The bottom line for me is until the bravery, integrity and selflessness of the men and women who fought and died in Vietnam is made the singular thesis of a documentary I don't care to watch another supposedly "balanced" history.

Another General Speaks

I heard it up close and personal forty-five years ago. We could have used his strengths these past five years. Perhaps even his perceived weakness, his ego, would have been an effective counter force in pursuit of sound military strategy against incompetent civilian planning.

In this speech Gen. MacArthur continues to speak to the professional military officer. The conduct of the general officer ranks of the United States military in recent years can be judged against this code of Duty, Honor and Country. All Americans need to try to understand this ethic to help put into proper context the perspectives of the professional military man and woman. It is not the complete answer but it is an excellent introductory lecture.

http://www.aogusma.org/PUBS/Register/MacA.htm