25 thoughts on “Lest We Forget”

  1. in remembrance of these too

     

    Attribution: Memorial Day 2023 by Bob Englehart, PoliticalCartoons.com

  2. too bad for all of us the GOPers have forgotten the words of their own forgotten leader once said over 40 years ago.

    “Yet, we must try to honor them — not for their sakes alone, but for our own.” “And if words cannot repay the debt we owe these men, surely with our actions we must strive to keep faith with them and with the vision that led them to battle and to final sacrifice. Our first obligation to them and ourselves is plain enough: the United States and the freedom for which it stands, the freedom [for] which they died, must endure and prosper.” “Their lives remind us that freedom is not bought cheaply. It has a cost. It imposes a burden. And just as they whom we commemorate were willing to sacrifice, so too must we — in a less final, less heroic way — be willing to give of ourselves.” “As we honor their memory today, let us pledge that their lives, their sacrifices, their valor shall be justified and remembered for as long as God gives life to this nation.”

  3. whether the sacrifices for country are small like compromising on legislation or big on the battlefield, these words by shakespeare still have meaning:

    We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
        For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
        Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
        This day shall gentle his condition:

  6. Here’s a Memorial Day gem — David’s sister Dale came across this message from Flatus on their father’s condolence site:

    RIP Marty, a fellow member of the 696th Ord Co (Ammo) near Uijongbu and points north. I bet we’ll enjoy chatting before long.
     
    Flatus in Columbia, SC
    Flatus Ohlfahrt
    March 19, 2015

     

  7. My ex-husband’s father died in Korea.  Just got this note passed along about how he died.

    My uncle Robert talked to someone who had seen him killed. They were at the northern border of North Korea. That night Ch troops came pouring across that border. My dad had taken the artillery gun when the gunner was shot. He was defending his men. Instead of ordering someone else to go, he manned the gun himself. He had defended his men in a similar way when they had gotten pinned by enemy fire in Seoul. He had been able to free them that time, but not against 500,000 troops.
    The marines came in eventually and fought the Chinese back. But before that the US Army Infantry had boots on the ground with dwindling supplies and poor support for months. They were hungry and cold, but MacArthur kept ordering them north. Hubris. Anyone who studies that action can see the glaring mistakes MacArthur made.
     

  8. Patd

    Always enjoyed the “those who were not there” part of the speech

    And gentlemen in England now a-bed
    Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
    And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks

  9. Memorial Day in Michigan in the Fifties was almost always at my paternal grandparents house.  In the morning we would visit the cemeteries, then back to their house. Usually a backyard thing, sometimes grilling sometimes cooking inside, my grandmother was a good cook.  My uncles were there, the veterans of WWI and WWII would sit and talk. Some decent whiskey was poured and passed around.  Just lazing the afternoon away until time to eat.  As a young child I learned some things about the wars, but not a lot.  Patriotism was in the old fashioned term, not the bs of what the far right fascists call it today. All in all it was good.

  11. More than 600,000 soldiers lost their lives in the American Civil War. An equivalent proportion of today’s population would be six million. In This Republic of Suffering, Drew Gilpin Faust describes how the survivors managed on a practical level and how a deeply religious culture struggled to reconcile the unprecedented carnage with its belief in a benevolent God. Throughout, the voices of soldiers and their families, of statesmen, generals, preachers, poets, surgeons, nurses, northerners and southerners come together to give us a vivid understanding of the Civil War’s most fundamental and widely shared reality.

     
    https://www.amazon.com/This-Republic-Suffering-American-Vintage/dp/0375703837

  12. Here’s what Trump thinks of our war dead.

    “When President Donald Trump canceled a visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery near Paris in 2018, he blamed rain for the last-minute decision, saying that “the helicopter couldn’t fly” and that the Secret Service wouldn’t drive him there. Neither claim was true. Trump rejected the idea of the visit because he feared his hair would become disheveled in the rain”

    Trump: Americans Who Died in War Are ‘Losers’ and ‘Suckers’ – The Atlantic

    https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/09/trump-americans-who-died-at-war-are-losers-and-suckers/615997/

  13. Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
    And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
     
    jamie, yes also very apropos for those in critterville (like hawley) and others (like carlson) who have the audacity to write books about manliness.  all hat and no cattle types.
     
    Ivy, yes am also fondly thinking of and missing today of all days flatus, solar, XR and our other gone but not forgotten trail friends who served.

  14. I don’t feel as bad about it as I once might have, but Liz Cheney will probably be president someday.

  15. It’s #MemorialDay weekend in the States. Of course, the actual meaning of the Memorial Day holiday is rooted in grief: it’s meant as a special time to remember those who have died in service to their country, or died after service to their country.⁣ It should be (or could be) a time to talk about grief. But grief isn’t a comfortable topic for most people, which is why even a holiday centered on grief doesn’t pay much attention to grief itself. ⁣⁣And even if your family isn’t grieving the death of a veteran, this first long weekend of the summer season can be rough if someone is missing from your annual cookout, too.⁣ ⁣There’s a lot of grief – visible and invisible – on this holiday weekend.⁣
    – Megan Devine, Refuge in Grief

  16. Former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney implored new college graduates to not compromise when it comes to the truth, excoriating her House Republican colleagues for not doing enough to combat former President Donald Trump’s lies that the 2020 election was stolen. In a commencement speech at Colorado College, the Wyoming Republican repeated her fierce criticisms of Trump but steered clear of talking about his 2024 reelection campaign or her own political future. Cheney, who graduated from Colorado College in 1988, recalled being a political science student walking into a campus building where a Bible verse was inscribed above the entrance that read, “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.”
     
    https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/liz-cheney-colorado-college-graduation-speech-republican-campaign-speculation-persists/

  17. ivy, much less enthusiastic was what i imagined o’er the doors of the schools of higher learning i hung out at … seemed to me they said

    Image result for all ye who enter here abandon all hope

     

  18. I am very fortunate in not having any relatives in the prior 2 generations die in wars although all but my grandfathers- who came of age in the depression but sent all their sons to one or the other theater in WWII. Same with Mrs. P’s family. We’re very happy our fathers survived- otherwise we wouldn’t be around to be happy. To those who weren’t as fortunate we owe a tremendous debt of gratitude. 

  19. America has two national holidays that honor those who have served, Veterans Day and Memorial Day. The former is for the living; the latter is for the dead. How we remember, honor, and judge the dead was on my mind as I wrote Halcyon, a novel that imagines an alternate America in which a scientific breakthrough has allowed a few of those dead to again wander among us. What follows is an excerpt that foregrounds questions of national memory, in which the novel’s narrator, Martin Neumann, encounters the World War II hero and renowned lawyer Robert Ableson considering his military service and the symbolism of our national cemeteries.Halcyon is about the intersection of individual and national memory, which is what Memorial Day is about too.

    https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/05/memorial-day-acts-remembrance/674228/

     

  20. In the wake of my own daughter’s death from Covid-19, I’m mindful of the mistreatment and disrespect that Viet Nam Veterans, including the families of the fallen, were made to suffer in their time of loss. 

  21. Lt. Turd, Dan Patrick, just blamed TX schools for school shootings.  After Santa Fe, a TX bill allocated $100 million for security, When the kids in Uvalde were murdered by someone with an assault rifle, there was still some money in the kitty.  “We have to be all in,” he said.   On to the next topic.  Let’s talk about legalizing gambling; he was all smiles.  Actually, he showed zero concern when talking about school shootings. 

  22. https://www.texastribune.org/2023/03/06/texas-legislature-lgbtq-bills/

    “Texas lawmakers this year passed bills banning puberty blockers and hormone therapy for transgender kids and restricting the college sports teams that trans athletes can join. They also expanded the definition of sexual conduct in a way that could include some drag performances in a bill meant to ban sexually explicit performances in front of kids.”

    Safe from drag shows, but not guns.

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