A must-read for Memorial Day

[thedrifter]

COMMENTARY
A must-read for Memorial Day

By JOSEPH L. GALLOWAY
McClatchy Newspapers

It's that time of year again. Memorial Day weekend is the beginning of summer fun for most
Americans, and as I've done before in this space, I want to pause to take note of the real reason there
is a Memorial Day.

It's meant to honor and pay our respects to those Americans who've given their lives in service to our
nation, who stand in an unbroken line from Lexington's rude bridge to Cemetery Ridge to the
Argonne Forest to the beaches of Normandy to the frozen Chosin Reservoir to the Ia Drang Valley to
the sands of Kuwait to the streets of Baghdad.

Over the last 12 months, 1,042 soldiers, Marines, sailors and Air Force personnel have given their
lives in the terrible duty that is war. Thousands more have come home on stretchers, horribly
wounded and facing months or years in military hospitals.

This week, I'm turning my space over to a good friend and former roommate, Army Lt. Col. Robert
Bateman, who recently completed a yearlong tour of duty in Iraq and is now back at the Pentagon.

Here's Lt. Col. Bateman's account of a little-known ceremony that fills the halls of the Army corridor of
the Pentagon with cheers, applause and many tears every Friday morning. It first appeared on May
17 on the Web-log of media critic and pundit Eric Alterman at the Media Matters for America Web site.

---

"It is 110 yards from the "E" ring to the "A" ring of the Pentagon. This section of the Pentagon is newly
renovated; the floors shine, the hallway is broad, and the lighting is bright. At this instant the entire
length of the corridor is packed with officers, a few sergeants and some civilians, all crammed tightly
three and four deep against the walls. There are thousands here.


"This hallway, more than any other, is the `Army' hallway. The G3 offices line one side, G2 the other,
G8 is around the corner. All Army. Moderate conversations flow in a low buzz. Friends who may not
have seen each other for a few weeks, or a few years, spot each other, cross the way and renew.
Everyone shifts to ensure an open path remains down the center. The air conditioning system was
not designed for this press of bodies in this area. The temperature is rising already. Nobody cares.

"10:36 hours: The clapping starts at the E-Ring. That is the outermost of the five rings of the Pentagon
and it is closest to the entrance to the building. This clapping is low, sustained, hearty. It is applause
with a deep emotion behind it as it moves forward in a wave down the length of the hallway.

"A steady rolling wave of sound it is, moving at the pace of the soldier in the wheelchair who marks
the forward edge with his presence. He is the first. He is missing the greater part of one leg, and some
of his wounds are still suppurating. By his age I expect that he is a private, or perhaps a private first
class.

"Captains, majors, lieutenant colonels and colonels meet his gaze and nod as they applaud, soldier
to soldier. Three years ago when I described one of these events, those lining the hallways were
somewhat different. The applause a little wilder, perhaps in private guilt for not having shared in the
burden ... yet.

"Now almost everyone lining the hallway is, like the man in the wheelchair, also a combat veteran.
This steadies the applause, but I think deepens the sentiment. We have all been there now. The
soldier's chair is pushed by, I believe, a full colonel.

"Behind him, and stretching the length from Rings E to A, come more of his peers, each private,
corporal or sergeant assisted as need be by a field grade officer.

"11:00 hours: Twenty-four minutes of steady applause. My hands hurt, and I laugh to myself at how
stupid that sounds in my own head. `My hands hurt.' Christ. Shut up and clap. For twenty-four
minutes, soldier after soldier has come down this hallway - 20, 25, 30. Fifty-three legs come with
them, and perhaps only 52 hands or arms, but down this hall came 30 solid hearts.

"They pass down this corridor of officers and applause, and then meet for a private lunch, at which
they are the guests of honor, hosted by the generals. Some are wheeled along. Some insist upon
getting out of their chairs, to march as best they can with their chin held up, down this hallway,
through this most unique audience. Some are catching handshakes and smiling like a politician at a
Fourth of July parade. More than a couple of them seem amazed and are smiling shyly.

"There are families with them as well: the 18-year-old war-bride pushing her 19-year-old husband's
wheelchair and not quite understanding why her husband is so affected by this, the boy she grew up
with, now a man, who had never shed a tear is crying; the older immigrant Latino parents who have,
perhaps more than their wounded mid-20s son, an appreciation for the emotion given on their son's
behalf. No man in that hallway, walking or clapping, is ashamed by the silent tears on more than a
few cheeks. An Airborne Ranger wipes his eyes only to better see. A couple of the officers in this
crowd have themselves been a part of this parade in the past.

"These are our men, broken in body they may be, but they are our brothers, and we welcome them
home. This parade has gone on, every single Friday, all year long, for more than four years."

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Mission for Memorial Day: Always Remember
By JENNIFER MILLER

If you traveled on one of the nation's Interstates in these last few days before Memorial Day, you might have encountered an unusual sight: bikers by the dozens stretched half a mile down the highway, their motorcycles flying military banners and spewing exhaust.

They are an intimidating bunch. Sheathed in leather from the neck down, they look like physical extensions of their bikes. But these riders are no motley crew. They are members of Rolling Thunder, a nationwide network of veterans and their supporters. Their destination: the Rolling Thunder Memorial Day rally on the National Mall in Washington.

"In D.C., people were mouthing 'thank you' and crying," Deno Paolini, a Vietnam veteran from Reno, Nev., recalled of his first trip to the Mall. Mr. Paolini said that the Washington run is one of the few times he feels appreciated for his service. In Washington, he said, it "began to make sense."

Rolling Thunder, which has thousands of members, was founded in 1987 when some Vietnam veterans and advocates for P.O.W.'s and M.I.A.'s befriended one another on the mall. They were looking for a special way to promote their cause. Ray Manzo of Hoboken, N.J., now a former marine, suggested motorcycles. The idea grabbed them. Masses of bikes descending on Washington would literally sound like Rolling Thunder, the code name for the bombing campaign over North Vietnam.

In its first year, the Memorial Day rally drew 2,500 bikers. Now, nearly two decades later, hundreds of thousands of bikers join in.

"When you put 200,000 bikes together," said Michael DePaulo, a Vietnam veteran from Berkley, Mass., who helps organize and run the rally, "it sounds like a B-52 strike."

One rider is Steve Britton, a former marine from Dillon, Colo. With his leather vest, cowboy boots and grizzled mutton chops, he resembles a sheriff in a western. And like many of his comrades, Mr. Britton is very much a modern cowboy. "I love the freedom and the air and the bugs in my teeth," he said of his attraction to motorcycles.

Riding also renews Mr. Britton's sense of self-worth, which he said he lost after he received hostile and indifferent receptions upon returning from Vietnam in the late 1960s. He said post-traumatic stress disorder and alcoholism prevented him from holding a steady job. "I was at the point where I was saying, 'God, either kill me or cure me,' and I really didn't care which."

But Mr. Britton turned to Christianity, joined the Christian Motorcyclists Association and found salvation on the open road. He carries a small Bible on his annual ride to Washington. The art on the cover depicts handlebars and shining headlights. The caption reads: "Hope for the Highway."

He serves as a chaplain for Rolling Thunder bikers. "That's why I go on the ride," he said. "To be able to share with people, to pray with people."

Mr. Britton pilots a bright purple Honda Gold Wing. His bike is equipped with plush purple seats and velour arm rests. He fills his five-CD changer with Randy Travis recordings and keeps a pouch of Twizzlers on the dash to tame his cigarette addiction. At gas stations, he drinks cups of black coffee; even at 65 miles an hour, the bike can lull a rider to sleep.

Mr. Britton is one of 50 or so Rolling Thunder bikers who meet in California and ride their motorcycles to Washington each spring. They call themselves Carry the Flame, and they take an Olympic-style "torch of remembrance" to soldiers' families who are unable to visit the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. The bikers stop at Harley-Davidson outfitters and V.F.W. posts to conduct flame-lighting ceremonies.

Most of the Carry the Flame riders are veterans who say they see the 10-day, eight-state, 3,000-mile journey as a powerful expression of identity and pride and a way to cope with the past.

"The ghosts get let out of the box," said King Cavalier II, a founder of Carry the Flame. He said that during the ride from California to Washington "full-grown 250-pound men break down like babies" because the experience makes them confront memories and emotions that have "been repressed for 30 years."

Mr. Cavalier grows somber and becomes teary-eyed when he stops in small towns to meet the parents and siblings of those who never returned from Vietnam.

He is not a veteran himself but rides in memory of his father, a career Air Force man who, he said, spent a lifetime fighting for complete military benefits (he received full disability status six months before he died, at age 90). "This is my service," Mr. Cavalier said of his involvement in Carry the Flame. "To quit would be like going AWOL."

Like many of the riders, Mr. Cavalier is also a member of Rolling Thunder National, an affiliated organization founded in 1995 that works year-round for veterans' rights. Rolling Thunder National has 80 chapters in 28 states. While most of its members are veterans, mostly from the Vietnam era, Rolling Thunder National estimates that 40 to 45 percent are not.

Mr. Britton tries to help Iraq war veterans who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. He calls the motorcycle his tool - his way of reaching out.

But riding also lets Mr. Britton experience the emotion of combat. "I'm an adrenaline junkie," he said, "and having been in a war situation, you don't get that buzz doing many other things."

It takes 10 days for the Carry the Flame riders to get from California to Washington. The veterans on the trip say they are not accustomed to the camaraderie that develops on the road; even those veterans in the group who have families say they generally feel a sense of isolation.

"We're all loners, and that's what you see here. That's the common thread," said Mr. Paolini, a small, wiry Vietnam veteran who rides with a cigar in his mouth and an iPod in his pocket. "But I'm here with these people, these wonderful men," he added, looking at the rows of bikes and the veterans milling around under the trees. "We've shared in this experience."

Mr. Britton agreed. "You don't get the same brotherhood in the civilian world that you get in combat," he said. "And all of us have looked for that since we've come back."

THE veterans may have felt disrespected and disenfranchised, but tearing down the road cross-country from Barstow in California to Tuba City in Arizona, from El Reno in Oklahoma to Washington with military flags ripping the air, is a kind of psychological remuneration.

For them, freedom is not an illusory ideal but a physical thing composed of leather, chrome and whatever element the sky might throw in their faces.

And they know that some experiences cannot be had in a car.

A couple of days into the 2005 trip, Mr. Cavalier remembered leading his riders through a mountain pass outside Angel Fire, N.M., with Mr. Britton and Mr. Paolini following single file as they wound their bikes into the chilly heights. As the men began their descent, an eagle and two ravens burst from a cluster of trees. The eagle fled its pursuers, shooting into the blue sky. Suddenly, it swooped toward the bikers, gliding beside them for a quarter mile or more - just another rider out on a beautiful day.

"The bike is a totally different world," said Germán Fernandez of Corona, Calif., another Vietnam veteran who was riding with Mr. Cavalier. "It's not for everybody, but the ones who like it get on, and they never get off."

Ellie

[thedrifter]

May 25, 2007, 5:00 a.m.

It’s Not Political
Being a defender.

By W. Thomas Smith Jr.

Buried beneath a stretch of ground on a ridge above the Broad River here in Columbia, S.C., are the remains of some 140 Confederate soldiers. Though some are in unmarked graves, most are beneath neat rows of small, white tombstones. At the entrance to this relatively small section of the much larger Elmwood Cemetery is a large, wrought-iron archway that simply says, “Confederate Soldiers 1861-1865.”

Nearby are ten Union Army graves — at least eight of them being soldiers of the U.S. 8th Infantry Regiment — who died during the postwar occupation of Columbia.

The Union and Confederate graves are separated by an old stone wall — the wall itself something of an unofficial monument, built to divide, thus symbolizing the simmering distrust that existed between the two regions of the country for decades after the war ended in 1865.

Beyond these two sets of graves are interred thousands of other soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines (including many more Civil War veterans and countless descendents of those Civil War veterans) from different times and future wars.

My father, a Korean War veteran, is one of them.

Point being: no matter what flags Americans have served under — or causes they have fought for — since initially choosing between the colonies and the Crown back in 1775, all are indeed Americans.

And most of them have fought less over the politics of a given conflict and more from the sheer fact that they were the ones responsible for defending the homeland or its interests abroad when politics and diplomacy had broken down.

As Lord Tennyson wrote:
Theirs not to make reply...
Theirs not to reason why...
Theirs but to do and die...
One of the oft-told stories of the American Civil War is one in which a U.S. Army officer asks a young Confederate soldier, who had just been taken prisoner by Union forces, if he (the Confederate) owned slaves. When the prisoner said no, the officer asked why he was fighting on the side of the rebellion. The Confederate matter-of-factly responded, “Because you’re here.”

Sounds simple, but for the Confederate soldier, taking up arms against the enemy had nothing really to do with politics or such lofty mid-19th-century issues as slavery and its abolition. It had everything to do with the fact that his country had been attacked. And if his fellow countrymen were going to shoulder weapons and march against the enemy, how could he not?

After all, as U.S. Navy Commodore Stephen Decatur said in 1815, nearly a half-century before the Civil War: “Our country! In her intercourse with foreign nations may she always be in the right; but our country, right or wrong!”

REMEMBERING THOSE, RIGHT OR WRONG
We remember those soldiers and sailors — right or wrong — in various annual observances, from Veterans Day to Armed Forces Day. This week, we remember the dead. We’ve done so since the end of our Civil War, when annual observances began cropping up in communities across the nation. The earliest observances specifically honored those Civil War soldiers, sailors, and Marines who were killed in action or, just as likely, died of wounds or disease (most of those buried here on the ridge over the Broad River died in the nearby Confederate hospital).

Which brings us to U.S. Army Gen. John A. Logan, the man who — under the command of Gen. William T. Sherman — led an invading force into Columbia, and who has since been blamed in part for this city’s burning on February 17, 1865. In what seems ironic to many South Carolinians, it was Logan who issued an order dated May 5, 1868, for the setting aside of a special day each year to honor the war’s dead. The order officially established what was to become Memorial Day — in those days known as “Decoration Day.” It read in part:
The 30th day of May 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet church-yard in the land. In this observance no form of ceremony is prescribed, but posts and comrades will in their own way arrange such fitting services and testimonials of respect as circumstances may permit.

So the man partially responsible for torching this old Confederate city, is also responsible for the flowers placed on Confederate graves every spring. Not surprisingly, white Southerners haven’t always been too keen on the idea of honoring their dead on a day set aside by Logan. And separate annual Confederate Memorial Days — observed on varying days in April, May, and June (as well as a Texas Confederate Heroes Day in January) — have been observed ever since Logan’s order was issued.

THE EVOLUTION OF MEMORIAL DAY
“Memorial Days began very soon after the war, and concurrently by both Northern and Southern groups,” Joe Long, curator of education at the South Carolina Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum, tells National Review Online. “There’s a book entitled Race and Reunion that claims that the very first Memorial Day service was held by black Americans in honor of Union soldiers.”

Long adds that Northern and Southern observances were organized by ladies’ memorial associations. “Those early memorial services were very much driven by women.”

A few weeks after Logan’s order, Gen. James A. Garfield (future president of the United States) presided over the first Decoration Day at Arlington National Cemetery (the former estate of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee), and approximately 5,000 participants decorated the graves of both Union and Confederate dead — about 20,000 of them — buried on the grounds.

Over the next 20-plus years, communities nationwide held Decoration (Memorial) Day observances. And by the end of World War I in 1918, annual services were held to honor the dead from all of America’s wars.

In 1966, President Lyndon Johnson declared Waterloo, N.Y., the birthplace of Memorial Day after it was determined Waterloo held the first such service in 1866, one year after the end of the Civil War.

In 1971, Memorial Day became a congressionally mandated national holiday.

Arlington National Cemetery continues to hold the largest annual Memorial Day service. Flags are placed at each of the nearly 300,000 graves. Presidential speeches are made. And a wreath is placed at the Tomb of the Unknowns (also called the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier).

As for me, I’ll do what I’ve done on previous Memorial Days: I’ll spend part of the morning strolling among the graves of both Union and Confederate soldiers on this ridge here above the Broad River. I’ll think about their efforts. I’ll consider how much they struggled on both sides. I’ll try to imagine what it must have looked like from this very ridge-top on that single night in February 1865 as my city burned, the Confederacy collapsed around my great, great grandparents, and what would become the world’s most powerful “nation for good” was saved by those who were willing to risk death to save it.

— A former U.S. Marine infantry leader, W. Thomas Smith Jr. writes about military issues and has covered war in the Balkans, on the West Bank, and in Iraq. He is the author of six books, and his articles appear in a variety of publications.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Last Reunions
This Memorial Day sees some of the last of the “Greatest Generation.”

By Rebecca Cusey

While other networks air reruns, PBS will celebrate Memorial Day with the live coverage of the Memorial Day concert from the National Mall. The event is cohosted by Gary Sinise and Joe Mantenga, both tireless advocates for veterans’ causes and regulars on the USO circuit.

After the Memorial Day concert, PBS will air Air Group 16: We Came to Remember. This short documentary by Drescher Films follows the last reunion of Air Group 16, a bomber squadron from the aircraft carrier USS Lexington in the South Pacific theater of WWII. These former warriors, now silver-haired and showing the frailty of age, flocked to Washington, D.C., for the dedication of the World War II memorial on the National Mall in 2004. Their reunion was echoed by others all over town, as 200,000 WWII veterans and their families came to the nation’s capital to be honored. For many, it was the last chance to see the men who had bunked with them, fought alongside them, and, in many cases, saved their lives.

T. Earl Dupree, Warren McLellan, Paul Bonilla, and Tom Bronn were just young men when they joined Commander Ralph Weymouth aboard the USS Lexington immediately after Pearl Harbor was attacked. They flew airplanes, less complicated than a modern calculator, on bombing missions in the South Pacific, risking being shot down or running out of fuel over open waters. Many of their companions didn’t make it home and the weight of the memory of their fallen friends hangs heavy on their shoulders even 60 years after the event. “We didn’t know what we were fighting for at that young age,” says one attendee, “Maybe our children, our family, our nation are better off today because of it.” Dupree goes further, “I was always a little runt and I didn’t really know whether I was a man or not,” he says, “But once you live through a few months of the kind of experiences in bomber 16, you don’t have any doubt of what kind of man you are.”

Another World War II veteran, not featured in this or any documentary, served as a Marine in the South Pacific. At the age of twenty-four, with a wife at home and a son he’d never seen, Colin “Kel” Kelley led fellow Marines to root out Japanese on a little known island named Peleliu. In a daring, single-handed grenade assault, he took out a cave of Japanese soldiers who were picking off his men, receiving a devastating wound in his lung. He made it home, barely, although 1,500 American soldiers died on that tiny scrap of coral in the South Pacific. He was awarded a Purple Heart and Bronze Star. The experience colored his entire life. Like many of his generation, he was a soldier first and everything else second.

He was also my grandfather.

We buried him at Arlington National Cemetery last month, along with his wife of 60 years. Under a threatening sky, Marines, no older than he was when he fought at Peleliu, went through the exquisite ballet of honor: A horse drawn caisson accompanied by a solemn band, a large honor guard, a twenty-one gun salute, and a precisely folded flag presented to the family.

Throughout his life, my grandfather saved a musket that his own grandfather carried in the Civil War. He held on to it because it reminded him of his grandfather, both as a soldier and a man. I always found it amazing that he knew, personally, a man who had fought in the long-ago Civil War. Now I realize that his fight will seem as distant to my grandchildren as the Civil War did to me. I keep my grandfather’s helmet, a typical green bucket from WWII, as a tactile reminder of his service, and an aid in keeping his memory intact.

When the men of Air Group 16 came together three years ago for their final reunion, keeping memories alive was very much on their minds. The “greatest generation” is the last to remember the anxiety of using every last bit of the nation’s resources to fight the enemy and still, for a while, facing the very real possibility of losing the fight. As members of that generation tell us, the country was unified in support of the war effort. There was no choice after Pearl Harbor. As a result, America witnessed the extraordinary heroism of ordinary men.

This Memorial Day, if you’re lucky enough to be able to shake the hand of a WWII veteran, be sure to take the opportunity. Maybe even take a picture. As their ranks thin, they’re joined by veterans of more recent wars, men and women who chose to fight in the hopes that it will never come to that level of war again. Their sacrifice renews and continues the freedom that prior generations fought for.

As a member of Air Group 16 said at his final reunion, “You’ve got to be willing to work. You’ve got to be willing to sacrifice. You’ve got to be willing to take a stand for what you believe in if you’re gonna have freedom. This air group already has.”

—Rebecca Cusey writes from Washington, D.C.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

May 25, 2007, 0:00 a.m.

A Vanquishing
It is a mistake to think that war history is unimportant.

By Rich Lowry

Editor's note: This column is available exclusively through King Features Syndicate. For permission to reprint or excerpt this copyrighted material, please contact: kfsreprint@hearstsc.com, or phone 800-708-7311, ext 246).

America as we know it might not exist were it not for the battles of Saratoga and Yorktown, Gettysburg, and Antietam. The world the United States shaped so decisively in the 20th century might have looked different were it not for Normandy and Midway.

Battles are so important to history that their names alone — Vienna, Waterloo, Stalingrad — can evoke the beginning or end of epochs and empires. Violent conflict is one of the most persistent characteristics of human history, and warfare features the interplay of strategy, weaponry, chance, logistics, emotion, and leadership. It is an occasion for folly and brutality, and — as we remember on Memorial Day — heroism and sacrifice.

It is for all these reasons that books and TV programming on warfare are so popular; their subject is both fascinating and important, history at its most consequential and dramatic. Nonetheless, military history has been all but banished from college campuses. In an article on this strange deficit in National Review, John J. Miller chalks it up to “an ossified tenure system, scholarly navel-gazing, and ideological hostility to all things military.”

History departments are dominated by a post-Vietnam generation of professors for whom bottom-up “social history” is paramount, and the only areas of interest are race, sex, and class. History focusing on great events and the “great men” central to them is retrograde — let alone military history that ipso facto smacks of militarism. Hence, the rout of military history in the academy that Miller catalogs.

Edward Coffman, a former military historian at the University of Wisconsin, studied the 25 best history departments according to U.S. News & World Report rankings and found that a mere 21 professors out of more than 1,000 listed war as their specialty. A Notre Dame student complained recently: “We have more than 30 full-time history faculty members, but not one is a military historian. Even in their self-described interests, not a single professor lists ‘war’ of any era, although half list religious, gender and race relations.”

Even professors who supposedly specialize in military history do it through the prism of trendy academic obsessions. Miller notes a professor at West Virginia University who lists World War I as one of his “teaching fields,” but his latest work is on “the French hairdressing professions” and the “evolving practices and sensibilities of cleanliness in 20th century France.”

The gatekeepers of the profession practically proscribe traditional military history. John A. Lynn recently looked back at the past 30 years of the prestigious academic journal The American Historical Review. He found no articles on the conduct of World War II, the American Revolution, or the Napoleonic Wars. There were articles that discussed atrocities in the English Civil War and in the American Civil War and an article on World War I — on women soldiers in the Russian army.

One frustrated teacher of military history jokes that military historians have become “exactly the types of marginalized people that the social historians are supposed to be championing.”

That military history has been chased from the academic field is especially perverse given that, when the classes are offered, they are popular with students. And military history, as a discipline, is as vital as ever. Writing on the American Heritage’s website, Sarah Lawrence College professor Frederic Smoler argues that “the past 30 years have seen a brilliant expansion in the intellectual and methodological breadth of military history,” beginning with the publication of John Keegan’s 1976 classic The Face of Battle.

None of this is enough to overcome the deep intellectual bias against military history. New Republic contributing editor David A. Bell locates that bias deep in the social sciences: “The origin of these sciences lie in liberal, Enlightenment-era thinking that dismissed war as primitive, irrational and alien to modern civilization.” This represents a fundamental misapprehension of human nature and thus the nature of history.

Brave men always will be necessary to defend freedom, and what they have done deserves to be remembered, and studied.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Honoring the Fallen
by Ericka Andersen
Posted 05/25/2007 ET

It was an unseasonably cold Memorial Day 1991 -- the gray morning sky blanketing a dewy ground. We sat in white chairs beneath a tent near an oversized mausoleum. I wore a red shirt and blue jean skirt and my legs threatened goose bumps against the dreary chill. The somber cast of the day kept my questions unasked. I stood beside my grandpa, a veteran of the Navy, as the sound of “Taps” drifted into play in increasingly strong tones – slicing through the silent gray like a beacon of reverence extending to the heavens.

Those warm, somber notes characterize so many things about our soldiers: they play “taps” at days’ end and, most notably, at the funerals of the fallen. A flag-draped coffin ignites a flurry of emotion overwhelmed with profound respect. The brisk, efficient clicks of a rifle salute being fired punctuate a tender moment. Men of valor are staunchly poised at the edges of a mourning family. The serviceman standing guard come because of the common bond of duty, honor, and respect they have for the fallen. They may not have met a particular soldier in life, but he is their brother that day.

Former Marine Sergeant Brandon Nordhoff has helped lay many of his unknown brothers to their rest. After his deployment to Iraq in 2003, Nordhoff began volunteering to appear at the funerals of soldiers. The U.S. military honors ceremony includes an honor guard detail and according to law, the honor detail must at least perform a ceremony that includes the folding and presenting of the American flag to the next of kin and the playing of “Taps.” At the funerals of 20 Midwest soldiers, Nordhoff presented the American flag to mothers, wives and kin.

“We didn’t know them but you might shed a tear because you feel a brother hood with them,” said Nordhoff. “Then you hear ‘“Taps,”’ which is probably the saddest song I’ve ever heard.”

Flag presentation is one of the most sacred moments of the ceremony, performed at the end, and presented, “…on behalf of the President and a grateful nation.” Grieving mothers and wives often define the war at home. When a soldier presents the flag to these women or next of kin, they embody the absence of the fallen.

At the gravesite, the military chaplain will perform a service committing the deceased to the earth and offer prayers and benediction. “The focus of a military funeral is to express gratitude from a grateful nation for the service of the veteran,” said Lorenzo York, assistant for public affairs for the Navy chief of Chaplains.

Nordhoff said military funerals are – by tradition -- different from civilian funerals. He initially volunteered after being involved in Sen. Richard Lugar (R.-Ind.)’s Veterans History Project, where he interviewed veterans about their war time service.

“Another reason [he volunteered] was because my family was not close to my Grandfather, who was a WW II vet, and I always wanted to hear his stories and never could,” said Nordhoff. “Because of him and others, I honor veterans and appreciate their service.”

Those services that Nordhoff participated in included soldiers and veterans of all ages. He said attending a younger soldier’s funerals were the most difficult. With the older soldiers, Nordhoff said family members were happy they had lived a full life.

“For younger people it is much harder because the death is unexpected,” said Nordhoff. “One would almost choke up on the words they are handing the American flag to a mother or father.”

It is in these rituals that families receive some small solace, and the reassurance that though their loved one may be gone, they – the survivors – are a part of the military community, that family of millions, for the rest of their lives.

After he completed his time in the Marines, Nordhoff decided to take on new role in public service. He now works in Washington, DC for the Secret Service. Many former military men and women join the police force as an extension of their dedication to protecting and serving our nation. Nordhoff said the Secret Service is full of veterans and many plan to wear their ribbons and awards on their police uniforms on Monday to commemorate Memorial Day.

Most of us don’t do more than take the day off on Memorial Day. But each of us owes the fallen the greatest debt: it is to them we owe our allegiance because they have preserved our freedom. Every Memorial Day we owe them a small prayer, and to remember them, one and all.

Miss Andersen is news producer for HUMAN EVENTS. E-mail her at eandersen@eaglepub.com.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Memorial Day, 2007: Why We Fight
by Marvin Olasky
Posted 05/25/2007 ET
Updated 05/25/2007 ET


Memorial Day is a time to remember soldiers who gave their lives and some non-combatant heroes as well, such as Michael Kelly.

Kelly was an established journalist on the left when he started seeing value in conservative positions. He was an established editor when he decided to imbed himself with U.S. troops at the beginning of the Iraq war.

Kelly's mother Marguerite posted recently an online article about her son's willingness to enter into danger: "He believed in this war ... He knew what Saddam Hussein had done to that country. He had seen all those gaudy, golden palaces he had built for himself while Iraqi children went hungry; he had met some of the families whose lives he had wrecked and he knew about the killings he had ordered -- the hundreds of thousands of killings."

Mrs. Kelly continued, "Mike was in Iraq in 2003 because he had been in Kuwait City on Liberation Day in 1991. He saw what Saddam's troops had done. He saw the rape rooms. He saw bodies in the morgue with their eyes gouged out; their skin scalded; their lives taken in terrible ways. He was there because he believed there are times -- not many, but some -- when it is more moral to go to war than to wait for more people to be gassed, more mass graves to be dug."

Believing that this war was worthwhile, Kelly journeyed to report on it. Theodore Roosevelt had come to a similar conclusion in 1898 when he was a nationally influential politician who favored war with Spain: He joined the Army, saying "my power for good, whatever it may be, would be gone if I didn't try to live up to the doctrines I have tried to preach." It all worked out for Roosevelt. He became a war hero and then president. It didn't work out for Kelly. He was killed soon after the war began.

Kelly's death, along with thousands of others, raises the question of theodicy: Why massively bad things happen in a world created and sustained by our good and omnipotent God. Kelly's reason for heading toward death suggests a partial answer to that question: He knew that those who fear giving up the pleasures God has bestowed upon them tend to cry, "peace, peace," when there is no peace -- and they thus become enablers of disaster.

Fighting evil brings its own evil. Over 600,000 deaths in the Civil War. Over 400,000 American deaths in World War II. But Marguerite Kelly believes her son would have considered those huge costs worthwhile: "Would he say that we should have cut our country in two and let the South have slaves? That we should have let Hitler rule all of Europe and let him kill any Jews that were left? (Michael) knew that holocausts start small; that evil is real; that somebody has to stand up and stop it, and that others must watch and tell the world that evil had really been stopped. And sometimes, he said, good people would die in the doing."

She wrote, "That our son was one of them still breaks our hearts, but we can't say that his death was unfair. If we did, we would have to say that it was unfair that he had enjoyed life so thoroughly; that he had such a fine career, such an excellent wife and such jolly, healthy sons ... we are immensely grateful that our son gave so much joy to us and to others. And we hope that he will give it to us again someday, somehow, somewhere."

Mrs. Kelly concluded with the sadness that lingers, the sadness that made Jesus weep: "For now, though, (Michael) lives in the land that was, and we are left alone." Many were and are left alone in Iraq, and many now in America. We live in a fallen world.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Memories of My Own on Memorial Day
Carol A. Taber

Today, only a small number of Americans have known anyone personally who died fighting for our country, but I have. My war was the Vietnam War, and I was a Vietnam wife, so I knew quite a few.

My husband at the time did not die in Vietnam, although he certainly was keenly aware of the dangers ahead of him when he accepted his NROTC scholarship. After he benefited from the Navy’s largesse that put him through four years at Dartmouth College, he was obliged to return to the Navy the four years that they’d invested to send him there. Very soon after graduation, our marriage, and officer’s training school, he was sent to Vietnam. He fought there as a Marine Corps captain and as a tank platoon commander for the requisite 13 months. Seeing a lot of action and unconscious for one whole Christmas, he was awarded two Purple Hearts and a Silver Star and then came home. There were many times afterwards that his tortured nightmares jolted us awake in the middle of the night and I thought at the time that he was dying too, a thousand little deaths, one at a time. While I thank God he survived, our marriage, regrettably, could not.

We speak of a military death as a sacrifice given to preserve our brilliant and beloved country and our very privileged and peaceful way of life. We envision these deaths where they most often occur - on the battlefield, as our children and neighbors and husbands are transformed into fallen heroes who fall under enemy fire and die heroically in an effort to defeat America’s enemies. But there are other deaths too, not so heroic but even more tragic and sacrificial, that occur in every war and their toll needs to be counted in the measure of whether war is worth the sacrifice we all make.

A few such deaths stand out particularly for me and I always remember their haunting images when Memorial Day rolls around. I hesitate to discuss them on this page, as today should be a day to call forth the best feelings and courage in us all, especially in an effort to sustain us through another generation’s war which we simply must see through to its successful end. But it isn’t authentic to remember only those who died as John Wayne would have died; we must remember them all. So I now ask us to remember those Americans who have died so their country may live, though their sacrifices often go unnoticed.

One such soldier, and an old friend, suffered from a prolonged struggle with post traumatic stress syndrome following Vietnam and died by his own hand years later in front of the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C. Right before he committed this act, he shot and killed his wife in front of their children. Theirs was a brutal and stunning sacrifice of which many outside the military do not take notice. But it was a tragic American family sacrifice nonetheless and they must surely both be counted, as well as their children, as among the nearly 1.3 million casualties of our wars dating back to, and including, the Civil War. There are more of these kinds of deaths, both physical and spiritual, than we would like to acknowledge. But these casualties need to be honored as all the others are honored, too. They have all made the ultimate sacrifice, whether willing or not, so that we may not have to.

Innocent lives are taken in every war and are counted as collateral damage. It is impossible for me to say with the same certainty whether this sort of sacrifice is “worth it” for the rest of us, although I think it is. If it weren’t for America and all that it does and represents, hundreds of millions across the world would not be living in peaceful societies now and many – perhaps the person who will one day cure a dreadful disease - would not even have been born. Our military is used for good purposes: to protect and bring hope to the many even though the few are devastated in the process. While others say that not one life is worth the agony of war, I know that wars fought by the United States military are carried out for the good of the world community and thus are worth it to fight and to die in if necessary.

I will never know if our friend died because of the cravenness of self-interested politicians who rendered his service futile and unworthy by pulling the plug prematurely on that highly divisive war. I can only hope and pray that the same political mistakes will not be made this time around. We have decades ahead of us in this war against radical Islam; let us screw up our courage and wholeheartedly support whatever presidents have to execute this war and stand firmly behind our soldiers, too, so that none of them faces the overwhelming despair that comes from confronting violence and death and returning to an ungrateful and uncaring nation.

# #

Carol A. Taber is the president of FamilySecurityMatters.org

[thedrifter]

May 28, 2007, 5:00 a.m.

Where Eagles Dare
Takin’ It to the Streets

By James S. Robbins

Last Thursday I was at the United States Military Academy at West Point for a book signing for Last in Their Class. (Shout out to Second Lieutenant Roberto Becerra Jr., Goat of the Class of 2007.) I was sitting next to Brigadier General John C. “Doc” Bahnsen Jr., USA (ret), USMA 1956, and his wife Peggy. Doc is a graduate of the Class of 1956 who went on to two tours in Vietnam, for which he was awarded 18 medals for gallantry. Peggy was also a retired Army officer and Vietnam vet, who in the early 1990s was the first female Regimental Tactical officer at the Academy. Doc was signing copies of his book, American Warrior: A Combat Memoir of Vietnam. Everyone who stopped by the table either served under Doc, had seen him give a speech, or had heard inspiring tales about him. It was very enjoyable to be able to talk to the Bahnsens and get Doc’s unvarnished view of world events.

At one point two men stopped by, Vietnam vets, dressed casually, wearing baseball caps with pins clearly identifying one as former Army, the other a former Marine. They were very happy to meet Doc, and exchanged a few Namisms in the friendly, easygoing way of members of that fraternity. The men were retired Army Chief Warrant Officer 3 George Samek, and retired Marine Gunnery Sergeant Larry Hoffa. They were representing Gathering of Eagles, in town to counter the planned demonstration during Saturday’s commencement ceremonies.

GOE started out as an event rather than an organization. Its members first gathered to counter the March 17, 2007, antiwar demonstration at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. The protest was organized by Jane Fonda and Cindy Sheehan, among others, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the 1967 march on Washington. It was believed that some of the protesters intended to deface the Wall. Around 30,000 Eagles attended, making this one of the only times that the counter demonstrators outnumbered the demonstrators, who mustered no more than 20,000. Afterwards many Eagles decided that this was an effort that needed to continue. They formally stood up the organization, with the stated mission to support the troops and their families; educate Americans on defense matters; and restore patriotism and spirit in the United States. And, true to the spirit of their founding, to take their message to the streets. Said Larry, “We’re no longer going to be the silent majority. … Any time, any place, any weather, we’re going to be there.”

Since then the Eagles have participated in a number of events nationwide, often working with other patriotic organizations. George and Larry had just come from New London, Connecticut, where they faced off with protesters at the Coast Guard Academy graduation. President Bush was the commencement speaker. Demonstrators gathered near the entrance to the Academy, chanting and waving signs. They had defaced the front gate with slogans in chalk, and there were a few altercations. But around 100 Eagles and other counter-demonstrators turned out, and held their own.

At USMA the scene was similar. Cars filled with family members and other spectators were backed up along the main street through the village of Highland Falls, just south of Thayer Gate. GOE had placed small American flags along the route, and a 20-foot flag flew from a crane. The demonstrators had gathered at Memorial Park along the entry route. They had sued to be able to demonstrate on the grounds of the Academy but a court refused to issue the necessary injunction. The protest took the usual ritualized form, with signs, coffins, costumes, chanting, music blaring. Many signs mocked the vice president, who was the guest speaker. Numbers are hard to estimate, but based on several accounts there were 350-500 demonstrators, and 40-150 Eagles. Eagles came from as far north as Maine, as far south as North Carolina.

The protesters were not as aggressive as the group at New London, and there was some constructive dialogue. “There was one young Iraq vet,” George said. “He came up the hill to shake my hand. I hugged him, shook his hand and we prayed for his buddies still fighting in Iraq. … This was the finest moment of the visit. I made him think. He will be back. I loved this guy. He was brave to do that in front of these people. He got my respect — I got his — good swap!” Larry too had some good conversations with protesters. It is noteworthy that the Eagles will invest the time to try to reason with the demonstrators, trying to convey positive messages and get the demonstrators’ thinking. Confronting without being confrontational. Their assessment of the event at West Point? “As far as I’m concerned,” Larry said, “it was total victory.”

“I’ve never done stuff like this in my life,” Larry added. He recalled when he arrived back from Vietnam in 1969, flying into San Francisco. Protesters were at the airport, very hostile, with signs saying “Baby Killer” among other things. Larry went directly to the restroom and changed out of his uniform. He had no idea things were so bad in the U.S., and did not want to be the object of hatred. But now he wants to make sure that today’s Marines won’t have to go through what he went through.

George’s motives are similar, and he spoke intensely when explaining what he told the protesters. “You spit on me when I came back from Vietnam,” he said. “You will not spit on this generation of soldiers. You will never again spit on my Army.” He smiled. “You know, I quit my job to do this. My wife said — sic ‘em!”

Ellie

[thedrifter]

May 28, 2007, 6:00 a.m.

On Memorial Day We Remember the Fallen
Every other day, let’s thank those who are ready to join them.

By Mario Loyola

I was born at Fort Carson hospital, to a young West Point graduate from Puerto Rico, and his wife, a beautiful young refugee of the Cuban revolution. My earliest memories are of the U.S. Army taking care of us while we waited for him to come back from Vietnam. One of the first words that I learned to say was cótelo!, the Spanish word for “helicopter.” My father belongs to the third generation of my family on the Puerto Rican side to have fought alongside Americans in our wars.

Many years later, when I was hired on at the Pentagon as a speechwriter, I couldn’t escape the feeling that I was returning to the nest. During my time there, I had the humbling honor of working with the most dedicated, kind, and brilliant group of people I have ever known — political appointees, civil servants, and military alike.

But there was something special about the military folks — a halo they were scarcely aware of. Once, I was in the front office of an assistant secretary, surrounded by civilians chatting about this-and-that, when suddenly the door swung open, and a bunch of uniforms started walking in. The first of them, a junior officer, looked at me (because I was the closest to the door) and said simply, “General Eikenberry.” With this curt announcement, the entire room fell silent, as General Eikenberry (then commander of our forces in Afghanistan) entered with his entourage.

Those in uniform always observe an unmistakable deference to the civilian leadership. Even colonels dealing with those of clearly inferior civilian rank were always punctilious in their respectfulness. Civilian control of the military is a fundamental principle of the Constitution that they have sworn to uphold.

But there is another side to that coin: a recognition on the part of the civilians that their decisions mean life or death for those in uniform. It didn’t take long for me to appreciate how heavily this responsibility weighs on representatives of the people, those who hold that power of life and death in their hands. In exchange for the deference of the military, we show reverence — reverence for the sacrifices that they and their families make; reverence for their commitment to preserving our way of life; reverence for the fact that, just as we have put our lives in their hands, they have put their lives in ours.

After a while at the Pentagon, I came to behold those in uniform as a unique species, greater than mere mortals. The men and women of our armed forces — those living every bit as much as those who have fallen — are our guardian angels. At the commandment of our elected representatives, whether they think the commandment ill-advised or well-advised, they will sacrifice their lives for us. And while we may fail in our commitment to be careful with their lives, they do not fail in their commitment to us.

There is no way to thank them, really. And they expect no thanks. Apart from thinking through the ultimate policy issues as well as we can, a responsibility we too often shirk for petty politics, the most one can do to thank them, I suppose, is to enjoy to the fullest that way of life that they nurture and protect; to nurture and protect that way of life in all the ways they can’t; and to follow their example by working hard, and being kind, and being always ethical.

And don’t forget to say “thank you” once in a while to those guardian angels who are still among us. Next year, we will be remembering some of them on Memorial Day.

Ellie

[USMCmailman]

Thank You Drifter For Remembering !!!!!:usmc: :thumbup: