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Post by Ralph on May 22, 2009 15:01:42 GMT -5
In keeping with a tradition I started on the boards I perform Admin functions for, I always try to do something special for the different holidays. Thus the new banner that will remain until the weekend is done.
Though we haven't gone overboard here for them all, I can see no better holiday than Memorial Day to offer up our thanks for those that have paid, will pay, and are still paying the ultimate price for the freedoms we hold so dear.
So as we load up the coolers or stoke up the grills over the weekend, let us always keep in mind those that have gone before us in the service of our country........and never forget.
Have a great Memorial Day Weekend!
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Post by Clipper on May 22, 2009 15:47:13 GMT -5
Thanks Ralph. I am sure that all the veterans among us are as grateful as I am, and are glad that you put the picture up there to remind us to pay homage to those that we have lost in war.
I will be going to the cemetery on Monday to visit my dad's grave and to insure that the Veterans Groups have placed a flag holder and flag on his grave. He was a veteran of two different wars.
I will also be thinking of my best friend from high school that was killed in Viet Nam. His name was Gary Hartman. He was a machine gun squad leader with the Marines, and was killed by friendly air support while scouting ahead of his unit. The traveling Viet Nam wall is coming to our area in June. I will be running my hand over his name on the wall, with tears in my eyes, remembering the 19 year old curly haired kid that proudly joined the marines, only to be killed in a jungle many many miles from Newport NY. We spent many evenings in the little two table pool hall in Newport, drinking cokes and playing nineball. One would never have thought that within a few months of graduation we would be fighting a war, or that Gary would be killed. God rest his soul. He was a proud marine, and gave his life for what we all thought at the time to be a righteous mission. I lost several friends and comrades in Viet Nam, but Gary is the one that is always closest to my heart. It is like one minute we were kids raising hell in Newport, and the next he was gone forever.
Thanks again Ralph, and may God bless all those veterans that went before us, and fought for the freedoms we enjoy today. God bless our troops that are fighting now in he middle east to insure that those freedoms remain safe and are spread to other parts of the world.
Our weather is supposed to be nice all weekend. I hope that yours will be also. I wish everyone a very happy Memorial Day Weekend, and remind them once more to remember the somber reason for the holiday and those that gave their lives for us in battles far from home.
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Post by dgriffin on May 22, 2009 15:54:17 GMT -5
Ralph, thanks so much for today's banner. While military service has been a tradition of most male members of my family, for various reasons I did not have the opportunity to serve and am therefore not a veteran. To be honest, I cannot feel bad about missing the chance to visit South Vietnam in the mid sixties, but I have always felt that a basic ingredient of my life was somehow missing. Still, one way or another, I am one of the lucky ones. I well remember the day I visited the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in DC. I had been sitting on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial that beautiful May afternoon in the 1980's, waiting to meet a friend. With Mr. Lincoln sitting behind me in his massive chair, and the Reflecting Pool sweeping out in front of me, reaching to the Washington Monument, I noticed crowds of people off to my left, over toward Constitution Avenue. When she arrived, my friend and I walked over in that direction and discovered the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. I think it may have been the first or second year it was open. Walking down the Memorial's path, at first only a few names appeared on the wall, but as we descended further down the broad front of name after name after name just kept rolling at us, as if the wave of death was unstoppable. Loved ones had left notes and flowers on the wall, little toys and photographs ... the debris of tragedy I would later call it, when in 1995 I saw the same items pinned to the fence surrounding the bombed out Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. The wave of death dwindled down little by little as we climbed back out of the depression dug for the Memorial. My companion's eyes were wet, and so were mine. So much death, decimating those who for the most part were America's older children. So much promise snuffed out. So many broken hearts back home. Wives, parents, tear filled days, lonely and awful nights. Orphans. Aunts and uncles. Brothers, sisters, friends, all wondering how could he or she be dead, just like that. I pray it will never happen again, but I know it will. Men sometimes find themselves in the middle of circumstances in which they must make decisions that are deadly for their brothers and sons. I have always understood this aspect of leadership. But from time to time I cannot stop myself from hoping that Robert S. McNamara rots in hell.
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Post by jon hynes on May 22, 2009 17:45:51 GMT -5
Yes thanks Ralph. Very nice banner.
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Post by fiona on May 22, 2009 18:09:11 GMT -5
Beautiful. Thank you.
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Post by chris on May 22, 2009 18:16:52 GMT -5
Thanks Ralph...great. My best friends husband died in the Vietnam war also. He was from Utica also. In memory of Harry Hamm.
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Post by clarencebunsen on May 22, 2009 18:48:10 GMT -5
Thanks Ralph,
I didn't "get" the Wall until I visited it. Even though there were several names I knew there, there was one I had to find and touch. I can't explain but the touching was much deeper than when I saw his name on the MIA and then the KIA list.
I spoke today with a man whose son survived 3 tours in Iraq unscathed, came home and died of a heart attack. I didn't know him but I will remember him this weekend.
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Post by Ralph on May 23, 2009 0:58:07 GMT -5
Thank you all, it's nothing special, just what I can do.
Clarence, I have seen things like that before. Karma, fate, whatever you want to call it. Seems very ironic and heartbreaking to walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death only to be struck down upon the very place the Dove rests its head.
But when your number's up......your number's up.
It makes us realize that there is hardly any time anymore....never really has been, and we always do things or say things to late.
I have a blog over on my MySpace that I may link here one of these days, But I will indulge myself by posting a little something here that I wrote a little while ago. ...........................................................................
TIME
April 22, 2009
Time.....is not on our side.
Time slips by like a thief in the night, it steals away from you in bits and pieces, and sometimes in leaps and bounds.
Sometimes it stands still; but as always, when you look, the moment you waited for is gone forever...never to return.
Such is life.
Before you know it it has slipped away. Things you wished for, things you had hoped for, things you never realized you wanted or needed have gone before you like ancient ships sailing on the sea. Always on the horizon for you to grasp; but because you never reached out to them......have sailed away.
Things we wish we had done, lives we wish we had touched, deeds gone undone, flowers we never smelled, chances we never took, and kisses we never stole.
We are here now, never before to pass this way again. When I am done writing this the moment I started will have ceased and the moment you read it will be gone from our lives like dust in the wind.
There are no "do overs", no pause button to push and spend a moment to decide if we were right or if we were wrong.
There is only here.
There is not even "now", for that has perished while we lingered on the next second that was dead and gone before we had the chance to think about it.
"Never leave behind for tomorrow what your heart tells you to do today."
An excellent thought to ponder......but not for too long, because tomorrow never comes...it is always another yesterday behind us.
The time is here, now.
Revel in it and enjoy it now, for what it is.
For too soon it will be just another yesterday.
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Post by dgriffin on May 23, 2009 7:08:59 GMT -5
That's very nice, Ralph! And I didn't know you had a blog. I know you're more humble than I could ever be, but you should point us to your blog more often. One's writing is always a gift to others.
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Post by frankcor on May 25, 2009 5:20:31 GMT -5
Ralph, the banner is a fitting tribute to our fallen heros. Thank you.
All, please remember my comrades of the 199th Light Infantry Brigade whose names are engraved in the wall. Welcome home, brothers.
Hand salute!
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Post by wcup102 on May 25, 2009 8:01:33 GMT -5
The deepest hearfelt "Thank You" goes out to all our troops and veterans, past and present, for giving me the ultimate right of being free. We all knows what comes with our freedoms and the price paid for such, and going to bed peacefully and waking every morning, is something some will never do again. I will never be able to express sincerely enough to those who have fought, are fighting, and will fight, how indebted I am to their sacrifice for a simple man such as me.
Thank you, one and all!!!! God bless!!
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Post by concerned on May 25, 2009 8:06:36 GMT -5
It is interesting that North Korea tested more of there missles today. I like the banner, also. Everyone have a nice day and remember. Also at 3PM there is a moment of silence being observed throughout the USA.
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Post by clarencebunsen on May 29, 2009 18:40:44 GMT -5
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Post by dgriffin on May 29, 2009 19:05:26 GMT -5
The car stickers certainly speak to selective enforcement: "The letter from the board states you can't have any form of advertisement anywhere on your car on your property. FOX 4 cameras spotted bumper stickers for political parties, health causes, and other non-commercial interests on the property as well."
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Post by bobbbiez on May 29, 2009 19:21:48 GMT -5
What a crock of bull sh*t! But as I keep saying, "the world has changed and not for the better," and it continues to get worse by us kneeling down to satisfy a few who might be opposed. As long as I can remember, the majority was suppose to rule. What the hell happened?
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