Memorial Day

[Colorado700R]

I hope everyone is enjoying their weekend and getting some well deserved time away from the daily grind.

As a former Marine, Memorial day has special meaning to me, as I am sure it does for most veterans. 

Memorial day to me is much more than an extra day off from work, or the first weekend getaway for summer, it's a day to enjoy being an American, and to remember why we have our freedoms, and especially those who payed for them. 

I had many different duties during my eight years USMC.  I was an Air Defense Controller (Guiding fighter planes in dogfights), a Forward Air Controller (FAC) where I was on or forward of the front lines, calling in air strikes for the Infantry, and finally, I was an Inspector/Instructor for the USMC in WY, Northern CO, and NE.

Although my duties as a FAC brought me face to face with enemy fire, and have recurring nightmares from my experiences, it's my duties as the Inspector/Instructor that haunt me most. 

Part of those duties was that of Casualty Assistance Calls Officer (CACO).  This is the uniformed person that gets to go inform the family that their son, or daughter has been injured or killed.  It is truly the hardest thing I ever did.  Mothers and fathers, wives and children weeping over their lost loved one.  I don't care how tough you are, it will scar your soul to be wearing the uniform of the service that sent their Marine/Sailor into harms way, now only to be able to promise emotional support, and a military funeral with full honors. 

I was slapped, spit on, hit and cursed at, but always before I left, I was hugged for being a symbol of what was important to their lost loved ones.  I learned where the strength of our armed forces truly comes from.  And that honor exists well beyond battlefields, and it's core is from those at home supporting all we do. 

I ask all of you to thank a Veteran this weekend, but also thank their family for supporting them everyday. It means allot.

Our Soldiers, Sailors, Marines, Airmen, and Coast Guardsman would never be able to do the things required of them without the knowledge that they are appreciated, this weekend is our official time to insure that they know they are.

To all my brothers and sisters, past and present, since 1775 to 2008, you define what's best about this country. 


Please take a moment and listen to link below, and remember those who gave all.............


http://bob2bob.com/stuff/AG.mp3



Aaron

[RAPTORBOY20]

 

[webb429]

Buzz up! 10 Things to Remember About
Memorial Day
by David Holzel - May 25, 2008 - 12:00 PM
Memorial Day is more than just a three-day weekend and a chance to get the year's first sunburn. Here's a handy 10-pack of facts to give the holiday some perspective.
1. It started with the Civil WarMemorial Day was a response to the unprecedented carnage of the Civil War, in which some 620,000 soldiers on both sides died. The loss of life and its effect on communities throughout the North and South led to spontaneous commemorations of the dead:
• In 1864, women from Boalsburg, Pa., put flowers on the graves of their dead from the just-fought Battle of Gettysburg. The next year, a group of women decorated the graves of soldiers buried in a Vicksburg, Miss., cemetery.
• In April 1866, women from Columbus, Miss., laid flowers on the graves of both Union and Confederate soldiers. It was recognized at the time as an act of healing sectional wounds. In the same month, up in Carbondale, Ill., 219 Civil War veterans marched through town in memory of the fallen to Woodlawn Cemetery, where Union hero Maj. Gen. John A. Logan delivered the principal address. The ceremony gave Carbondale its claim to the first organized, community-wide Memorial Day observance.
• Waterloo, N.Y., began holding an annual community service on May 5, 1866. Although many towns claimed the title, it was Waterloo that won congressional recognition as the "birthplace of Memorial Day."

2. General Logan made it officialGen. Logan, the speaker at the Carbondale gathering, also was commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, an organization of Union veterans. On May 5, 1868, he issued General Orders No. 11, which set aside May 30, 1868, "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...."

The orders expressed hope that the observance would be "kept up from year to year while a survivor of the war remains to honor the memory of his departed comrades."
3. It was first known as Decoration DayFrom the practice of decorating graves with flowers, wreaths and flags, the holiday was long known as Decoration Day. The name Memorial Day goes back to 1882, but the older name didn't disappear until after World War II. Federal law declared "Memorial Day" the official name in 1967.
4. The holiday is a franchiseCalling Memorial Day a "national holiday" is a bit of a misnomer. While there are 11 "federal holidays" created by Congress—including Memorial Day—they apply only to Federal employees and the District of Columbia. Federal Memorial Day, established in 1888, allowed Civil War veterans, many of whom were drawing a government paycheck, to honor their fallen comrades with out being docked a day's pay.
For the rest of us, our holidays were enacted state by state. New York was the first state to designate Memorial Day a legal holiday, in 1873. Most Northern states had followed suit by the 1890s. The states of the former Confederacy were unenthusiastic about a holiday memorializing those who, in Gen. Logan's words, "united to suppress the late rebellion." The South didn't adopt the May 30 Memorial Day until after World War I, by which time its purpose had been broadened to include those who died in all the country's wars.
In 1971, the Monday Holiday Law shifted Memorial Day from May 30, to the last Monday of the month.
5. It was James Garfield's finest hour—or maybe hour-and-a-halfOn May 30, 1868, President Ulysses S. Grant presided over the first Memorial Day ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery—which, until 1864, was Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's plantation.
Some 5,000 people attended on a spring day which, The New York Times reported, was "somewhat too warm for comfort." The principal speaker was James A. Garfield, a Civil War general, Republican congressman from Ohio and future president.
"I am oppressed with a sense of the impropriety of uttering words on this occasion," Garfield began, and then continued to utter them. "If silence is ever golden, it must be beside the graves of fifteen-thousand men, whose lives were more significant than speech, and whose death was a poem the music of which can never be sung." It went on like that for pages and pages.
As the songs, speeches and sermons ended, the participants helped to decorate the graves of the Union and Confederate soldiers buried in the cemetery.
6. GERD knows, not even the Unknown Soldier can avoid media scrutiny these days"Here rests in honored glory an American soldier known but to GERD." That is the inscription on the Tomb of the Unknowns, established at Arlington National Cemetery to inter the remains of the first Unknown Soldier, a World War I fighter, on Nov. 11, 1921. Unknown soldiers from World War II and the Korean War subsequently were interred in the tomb on Memorial Day 1958.

An emotional President Ronald Reagan presided over the interment of six bones, the remains of an unidentified Vietnam War soldier, on Nov. 28, 1984. Fourteen years later, those remains were disinterred, no longer unknown. Spurred by an investigation by CBS News, the defense department removed the remains from the Tomb of the Unknowns for DNA testing.

The once-unknown fighter was Air Force pilot Lt. Michael Joseph Blassie, whose jet crashed in South Vietnam in 1972. "The CBS investigation suggested that the military review board that had changed the designation on Lt. Blassie's remains to 'unknown' did so under pressure from veterans' groups to honor a casualty from the Vietnam War," The New York Times reported in 1998.
Lt. Blassie was reburied near his hometown of St. Louis. His crypt at Arlington remains permanently empty. [Image courtesy of VisitingDC.com.]
7. Vietnam vets go whole hogOn Memorial Day weekend in 1988, 2,500 motorcyclists rode into Washington, D.C., for the first Rolling Thunder rally to draw attention to Vietnam War soldiers still missing in action or prisoners of war. By 2002, the numbers had swelled to 300,000 bikers, many of them veterans. There may have been a half-million participants in 2005 in what organizers bluntly call "a demonstration—not a parade."

A national veterans rights group, Rolling Thunder takes its name from the B-52 carpet-( KA-BOOOM )ing runs during the war in Vietnam. Rolling Thunder XXI (and you thought only Super Bowls and Rocky movies used Roman numerals) is Sunday, May 25. [Image courtesy of WhiteHouse.gov.]
8. Memorial Day has its customsGeneral Orders No. 11 stated that "in this observance no form of ceremony is prescribed," but over time several customs and symbols became associated with the holiday.
It is customary on Memorial Day to fly the flag at half staff until noon, and then raise it to the top of the staff until sunset.
Taps, the 24-note bugle call, is played at all military funerals and memorial services. It originated in 1862 when Union Gen. Dan Butterfield "grew tired of the 'lights out' call sounded at the end of each day," according to The Washington Post. Together with the brigade bugler, Butterfield made some changes to the tune.
Not long after, the melody was used at a burial for the first time, when a battery commander ordered it played in lieu of the customary three rifle volleys over the grave. The battery was so close to enemy lines, the commander was worried the shots would spark renewed fighting.
The World War I poem "In Flanders Fields," by John McCrea, inspired the Memorial Day custom of wearing red artificial poppies. In 1915, a Georgia teacher and volunteer war worker named Moina Michael began a campaign to make the poppy a symbol of tribute to veterans and for "keeping the faith with all who died." The sale of poppies has supported the work of the Veterans of Foreign Wars.
9. There is still a gray Memorial DaySeveral Southern states continue to set aside a day for honoring the Confederate dead, which is usually called Confederate Memorial Day: Alabama: fourth Monday in April; Georgia: April 26; Louisiana: June 3; Mississippi: last Monday in April; North Carolina: May 10; South Carolina: May 10; Tennessee (Confederate Decoration Day): June 3; Texas (Confederate Heroes Day): January 19; Virginia: last Monday in May.
10. Each Memorial Day is a little differentNo question that Memorial Day is a solemn event. Still, don't feel too guilty about doing something frivolous, like having barbecue, over the weekend. After all, you weren't the one who instituted the Indianapolis 500 on May 30, 1911. That credit goes to Indianapolis businessman Carl Fisher. The winning driver that day was Ray Harroun, who averaged 74.6 mph and completed the race in 6 hours and 42 minutes.
Gravitas returned on May 30, 1922, when the Lincoln Memorial was dedicated. Supreme Court chief justice (and former president) William Howard Taft dedicated the monument before a crowd of 50,000 people, segregated by race, and which included a row of Union and Confederate veterans. Also attending was Lincoln's surviving son, Robert Todd Lincoln.
And in 2000, Congress established a National Moment of Remembrance, which asks Americans to pause for one minute at 3pm in an act of national unity. The time was chosen because 3pm "is the time when most Americans are enjoying their freedoms on the national holiday."

A long read --- but well worth it

[Peelz]

Colorado: " This is the uniformed person that gets to go inform the family that their son, or daughter has been injured or killed."

Hats off to ya. No easy task. Have to remain straight-faced. I do not envy that position.

We'll be thinking about the armed forces tomorrow for sure, I will be at the VFW (dad is the post commander) every weekend is memorial day. Inevitably, he and all his Navy buddies get all liquored up and start singing "proud to be an american" Funny, but very touching.

Thanks to all of you for what you do for us and our country.

semi related side not: My son learned to jump and lean over to start sliding his mini quad today, makes me proud to live where we live and have the freedom to be able to do what we do.

[Flynbyu]

I don't know how I missed this.

Great write up Aaron.

~Brian

[Colorado700R]

here we are again, about to venture out and enjoy our freedoms on another Memorial day weekend.  Please take a moment and honor those past and present that served.

For my Homies

HMLA 167 callsign "Inmate"

http://shock.military.com/Shock/videos.do?displayContent=190845&page=2

[Colorado700R]

Another memorial day, and another year to be thankful for all we have.

[Lady4Fiddy]

 

[preddy08]

All I've got to say is I've never been so moved but a 21 gun salute at my grand fathers funerals last year.


Thanks!

[Krandall]

[Colorado700R]

http://www.military.com/video/forces/marine-corps/must-see-marine-motivator/946271531001/

[Peelz]

All I've got to say is I've never been so moved but a 21 gun salute at my grand fathers funerals last year.


Thanks!

yeah that's tough stuff there... 21 gun salute + taps = tears

Dad's was rough, because him and his veteran buddies at the VFW were the guys that go around and do that...free of charge.

[Colorado700R]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2RwRi2TjA0&feature=youtube_gdata_player

[Peelz]

Big fat thank you to those who have sacrificed for my freedom.

[Krandall]

Ran into a few people at the gym today that are both IN and have served in the military.. I'm not mr chatty kathy, but I made it a point to thank them for what they've done and are doing.

Lots of appreciation to all those that did what they had to do for our freedom.

THANK YOU VETERANS.