Posts Tagged → memorial day
A Uvalde Memorial Day weekend
In the spirit of this Memorial Day weekend, it is important to recognize and acknowledge the 19 child students and two teachers sacrificed in a school in Uvalde, Texas, last week, to advance the Democrat Party’s pursuit of absolute and total control over every American.
No deaths are ever too many in the Democrat Party’s pursuit of the latest bloody crisis they can leverage into illgotten political gains. From late-term abortions where the living child is literally euthanized after having been born, to innocent school children gunned down in defunded police-free schools, the Democrat Party stands proudly for one thing: Death to children every day. Because God knows, the Democrat Party must always have a crisis to exploit to help them move otherwise unpopular and poorly considered legislation, and no sacrifice for that is too big or too sad.
We must also acknowledge the importance here of the Child Molesting and Pedophile Groomers’ Lobby, aka the National Education Association and its many state and local affiliate teachers’ unions. They, too, wish to exert unchallenged control over all taxpayer-funded government schools, where they exploit small children in psychopathic social experiments pitting the kids against their loving, devoted parents. Nothing happens in public schools without the teachers’ unions lobby say-so, and so their well considered decision to leave public schools as vulnerable soft targets is implemented everywhere across America. They can’t have their bloody crises without the soft targets inviting them.
The teachers’ unions are A-OK with sacrificing children and even some teachers to move their political football down the field. Recall that a great many of the teachers and politicians and basketball coaches demanding gun confiscation today are the very same people who demanded that local police forces be defunded and also stay the hell out of schools yesterday.
Yes, it is true that these teachers’ unions and their political allies speak out of both sides of their mouths, but what is the point of being logical and reasonable when your end goal is the total collapse of American civilization?
We have learned some disturbing facts about the Uvalde massacre over the past few days: A teacher propped open a door that cross-dressing murderer Salvador Ramos then walked through unopposed, after he had spent TWELVE MINUTES shooting his guns at the school building with no apparent return fire or police response. He must have realized that the school was undefended and also welcoming to mass murderers, and so he literally waltzed in.
And apparently the law enforcement officials who did eventually respond milled about outside for an hour like a bunch of scared school girls, and not like the trained burly men with firearms they actually are. What a bunch of cowards. And then these same cowardly law enforcement officials turned their violent attention onto the terrified parents they were blocking from the school, tasing one father and handcuffing a mother.
In other words, the police at Uvalde were too busy “saving” the parents outside to go inside the school to actually intervene and save the kids from Ramos.
You can’t make this stuff up, but a lot of this failure has to be associated with the Democrat Party’s efforts to defund and defang the police across America. As a result, a lot of police everywhere these days feel confused and uncertain about what they are supposed to do, and how much trouble they will get into with angry Democrats if they actually shoot a child murderer dripping blood from his hands. Because a heroic police officer to you and me is always a cold blooded murderer to the Democrat Party….
Gun confiscation from law abiding citizens is the Democrat Party’s goal here, for the simple reason that an armed populace is impossible to rule over the way that the Democrat Party intends. So, what’s a few sacrifices here and there in the pursuit of absolute and total control of all 350 million Americans?
Those of us inclined to think of and memorialize bloody American sacrifice differently than this cynical Democrat ploy can recall that our Memorial Day tomorrow is not just about those military personnel who gave their lives abroad for our freedom here at home. We also recall that in our own War for Independence, many unarmed heroes gave their lives right here on American soil so that future generations might live in freedom from government.
And this is how I prefer to think of the Uvalde kids and teachers now, as domestic heroes whose sacrifice will not have been in vain. Because so many Americans are catching on now to the Democrat Party’s anarchic lawlessness, and they see through their calls for more government control over our law-abiding lives.
Memorial Day Part II
The most nagging thought this week, which dampened my excitement or sense of purpose or meaning for this year’s Memorial Day, is the realization that the Biden Administration is running hard and fast to build a new US military. This new military is in the process of excluding (firing existing and not hiring new) conservative Christian Caucasians, patriots, and Constitutionalists. The reason this new military is being created is not to defend America, but to occupy and subjugate America. It is a military designed to protect the coup d’etat in Washington DC, to cement into place the stolen election of 2020, to bring the force necessary to hold on to illegitimate power.
This is terrifying stuff.
So in terms of observing this week’s Memorial Day, I was tormented all week by the idea that so many Americans have died to preserve our freedom, which we American citizens are now pissing away because we are literally letting people steal it from us. We are sitting here watching America be stolen and lawlessly overrun, and what are we doing about it?
You think the 2022 or 2024 elections will be free and fair? Not if the Democrat Party and their collaborator Republicans get their way with the so-called “Fair Voting Act”, which is simply designed to let the Democrat Party continue to cheat and steal elections forever. This means America will be a one-party nation, a one-party state, which is what all totalitarian nations have. And when the last vestige of freedom-loving Americans finally do rise up in revolt, the Biden Administration will demand the citizens turn in all of their guns, or face martial law.
And then martial law will be imposed, and the new anti-America, anti-Constitution military will be in place to enforce it. Instead of American military personnel of old who have been willing to die to give us freedom here at home, we will have a new type of military personnel who is willing to make us die in order to enable the Democrat Communist Party to hold on to control and power over us.
So yeah, this week’s Memorial Day took on a whole new context and meaning for me. America is in huge trouble.
Memorial Day – who and what are we remembering?
I struggled with today, Memorial Day. Every other Memorial Day of my life has been straight forward – we remember the fallen military service members who gave us the freedoms we HAD until January 20th of this year.
Now, America is witnessing a terrifying tyranny emanating from Washington DC, as the entire federal government apparatus is lining up to illegally attack patriots and conservatives from every direction. It is clear that the American government has been hijacked by the worst enemies of everyday Americans. The Biden Administration and their holdovers in government are the avowed enemies of freedom, liberty, the very Constitution that binds Americans together and has protected our rights since 1787. They are bad people. Definitely not Americans.
The FBI and the DOJ are staffed by individual people who are running rampant, crazed with unfettered power, trampling the Constitution underfoot, making a mockery of their own oaths of office. FBI agents concocting phony charges right and left, based on their personal political opinions. And military service people being drummed out of their careers, simply because they are pro-America.
These are dangerous times, and so in this context, Memorial Day today takes on a whole other meaning. At least to me. Like, if our citizens, elected officials, and taxpayer-funded public employees will not fight for audits of the 2020 election, to ensure the election was 100% kosher, then Memorial Day is actually a joke. We are in actuality remembering nothing and no one, but rather we are just going through the motions. We are sitting on our hands while the greatest nation in the world is literally stolen from us, right in front of us, and our noses are being rubbed in it.
What would our fallen service members have said about this situation? Would they have said “Yeah, no problem, we died in vain and that is OK. Go ahead and just give away the country to these evil people who want to subjugate you”…?
It is doubtful the fallen heroes would have said this, right?
So again, what is it we memorialized today? The failure of democracy because the citizens were too lazy or complacent? The failure of the military to actually stand behind their oaths of office, and to defend the nation from enemies foreign and domestic? The really shocking failure of our elected leaders to stand up for forensic audits of every state’s 2020 election results?
I am still struggling with this question. “Happy” Memorial Day, everyone.
Remembering US Army veteran Paul Marino
Today is Memorial Day, devoted to remembering the US military service personnel who devote their lives and safety so that the rest of us civilians can sit back and crack a cold beer and marvel at how life in America is oh, so good. So easy.
Out of the many hundreds of thousands of US military veterans who have contributed to my own daily sense of settled well-being, one recently caught my attention. Not because he was a super warrior who killed many enemies, nor because he was a battlefield hero who risked his own life to save many of our own wounded. What actually struck me was the clean, all-America way that Paul Marino lived his life, raised his wholesome family based on time-tested simple values, worked for a living, contributed to his community and neighbors.
Not that military veterans hold these kinds of qualities exclusively, but we all know many veterans, if not the vast majority, who are exemplary citizens and neighbors. Real stand-outs in terms of their public service, their charitable giving, their easy way with strangers and neighbors. US Army veteran Paul Marino exemplified all of this.
Here is the thing: I did not know or meet Paul Marino. He only came to my attention because he was recently executed with his wife, Lidia, while visiting the grave of their son Anthony in the Delaware Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Bear, Delaware. For years they visited Anthony’s grave there almost daily.
Paul and Lidia were shot in their heads execution-style, from behind, by a 29-year-old man named Sheldon Francis. He used a handgun, up close and personal. By all appearances this was a classic hate crime, Paul and Lidia targeted because of their skin color by a hateful man amped up on a constant barrage of racial hate and jealousy messaging from American campuses, activist groups, American media people, and even from some religious institutions.
Some people have surmised that Paul and Lidia were murdered by Francis in retaliation for the racially motivated murder of Ahmad Aubrey in Georgia earlier this year. I suppose to some people this might make sense, or even be justified. It is not justified, and I have no question that Paul and Lidia would disagree, also, were they alive today to have an opinion on it. After all, they believed in hard work, simple family values, church attendance, community, home, and service. Blind retribution was not in their lexicon.
As a little girl, Lidia remembered the German soldiers marching through her town in Italy, and she also remembered the American GIs marching through from the other direction as the Germans skedaddled in retreat. Lidia knew the value of family, community, and practicing good deeds.
Whatever the reason for Francis gunning down two people in their eighties in a cemetery, the fact remains America is much the poorer for their loss. We lost a solid veteran and his life partner in an unexpected, avoidable, unnecessary, evil way. Paul and Lidia represented the very best of America. The murder represents a culture clash that must be resolved, peacefully and with love, and firmly.
Modern America was built by people like Paul and Lidia Marino. In fact, it is impossible to think of an America without them and their important small, humble, daily positive gifts and services back to all of us. The solid communities they built, the sense of reliable neighborliness they brought to any community they lived in. And the US Army that Paul Marino served in did not so much build Paul up, as people like Paul built up that institution and made it the effective fighting force and great equalizer for Americans of all skin colors and religions that it remains today.
Rest easy, Soldier, and thank you for your many different services you provided to all of us Americans.
Memorial Day: All Enemies Foreign & Domestic
Thank you to all the living military veterans for having provided us Americans with the national security to carry on our stable domestic affairs as if there is not a care in the world.
Your service abroad to our nation makes the whole national enterprise possible. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Recent horrendous revelations about the Obama Administration’s domestic spying reveal that not all of America’s enemies are abroad, however. We have plenty of them here, on our own soil, doing their best efforts to destroy America from within.
Every serviceman and servicewoman takes the same oath and pledge of office that our elected officials take: To defend America from all enemies, foreign and domestic.
While we know the general temper of most veterans, the question arises about the intentions and abilities of our active duty troops.
Are they ready to defend America against our domestic enemies?
That list would include much of the Democrat Party leadership and most of its elected officials, all of whom have openly launched war against the American citizen, the American taxpayer, America’s domestic and foreign security, and against our Constitution.
The last time the Democrat Party did this, America fought a civil war. And the Democrat Party lost that war. The military heroes did not die abroad in that one, they died right here on their own soil.
One cannot help but wonder what Memorial Day will come to mean in twenty or thirty years…and what kind of military service and sacrifice we will be remembering at that time.
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Post script: A long time ago I was a member of the Democrat Party, some readers might be surprised to learn. As I grew up very rural, my beliefs were pro-gun, pro-life Democrat Party. Back then the only difference between Democrats and Republicans in Centre County was that the Democrats worked in the coal mines, and the Republicans owned or managed the coal mines. Otherwise we were all bound together by patriotic love of country, love of liberty, an appreciation for America’s bounties, as reflected by the Fords, Chevys, and International Harvester pickup trucks we drove, all of which had an American flag and a NRA sticker. Today we would identify Democrats like that as “Blue Dogs,” an animal that is pretty much extinct now. Starting thirty-some years ago, the Democrat Party started to go way off the rails. During the Reagan Administration they were cheering the Soviet Union against America, supporting Cuban tyranny against freedom and liberty, supporting the oppressive, socialist Nicaraguan Sandinistas against the capitalist Contras, and so on. Wherever in the world there was left-wing oppression and tyranny, there was the Democrat Party. At the age of 22, I had enough and changed to Independent, and then a few years later I changed to Republican out of necessity. Today the Democrat Party has become officially anti-America and anti-West and it bears no resemblance to the America-first party of my youth. And to be fair, neither does the Republican Party, the preponderance of its elected officials being committed to becoming wealthy through government above all other things. And if the GOPe folks are unprincipled, self-serving hogs, the Democrats have largely become sworn enemies of everything America. There is a huge difference and it needs to be explained. I am not a partisan person, never was, never will be. And I calls em as I sees em.
Memorialization Day
Memorial Day began as “Decoration Day” in 1868, as a way to remember the fallen military fighters of both the South and the North, the “Great Rebellion.”
Later it became Memorial Day to remember ALL fallen military service members, who gave their lives so we might live in ease here at home, especially those who fell in the “Great War” of World War One.
Perhaps you are surprised it wasn’t really started in 1968 to sell cheap mattresses and cars at exciting prices? Or perhaps slightly better, a weekend spent with family and friends around a campfire, drinking beer and eating hotdogs. Because that is what it has come to mean for so many of our fellow Americans.
To memorialize something is to “do or create something that causes people to remember (a person, thing, or event),” according to Merriam-Webster dictionary.
My son and his fellow Boy Scout troop members make annual pilgrimages to local Harrisburg cemeteries, and arrange flags on the graves of Veterans. The boys tidy up the graves, make sure the bronze emblems are correctly shown, and then they move on to the next.
This activity causes the boys who do this, and those who see the patriotic results, to actually memorialize the fallen heroes. And to me, every service woman and service man is a hero. Whether you see combat or not, whether the armed services gave you the step up you needed in life, or if the armed services were actually a digression for you, it makes no difference. Everyone who puts on an American armed services uniform is a hero, a patriot, and deserves to be memorialized.
Now and later.
The question that keeps rolling around in my head this week is “What will I do to mark this special holiday weekend?”
No, drinking beer won’t do it. Neither will eating hotdogs.
I will figure out something, and it may be as simple as leading our family in the Pledge of Allegiance to our great flag, which flies over our porch. But by God, I will remember, because if there is one thing I cannot do, it is take all this opportunity and wonder for granted.
If not for our armed services, America would not exist.
Thank you, women, and men, for your service.
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HEADQUARTERS GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC
General Orders No.11, WASHINGTON, D.C., May 5, 1868
1. 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.
We are organized, comrades, as our regulations tell us, for the purpose among other things, “of preserving and strengthening those kind and fraternal feelings which have bound together the soldiers, sailors, and marines who united to suppress the late rebellion.” What can aid more to assure this result than cherishing tenderly the memory of our heroic dead, who made their breasts a barricade between our country and its foes? Their soldier lives were the reveille of freedom to a race in chains, and their deaths the tattoo of rebellious tyranny in arms. We should guard their graves with sacred vigilance. All that the consecrated wealth and taste of the nation can add to their adornment and security is but a fitting tribute to the memory of her slain defenders. Let no wanton foot tread rudely on such hallowed grounds. Let pleasant paths invite the coming and going of reverent visitors and fond mourners. Let no vandalism of avarice or neglect, no ravages of time testify to the present or to the coming generations that we have forgotten as a people the cost of a free and undivided republic.
If other eyes grow dull, other hands slack, and other hearts cold in the solemn trust, ours shall keep it well as long as the light and warmth of life remain to us.
Let us, then, at the time appointed gather around their sacred remains and garland the passionless mounds above them with the choicest flowers of spring-time; let us raise above them the dear old flag they saved from hishonor; let us in this solemn presence renew our pledges to aid and assist those whom they have left among us a sacred charge upon a nation’s gratitude, the soldier’s and sailor’s widow and orphan.
2. It is the purpose of the Commander-in-Chief to inaugurate this observance with the hope that it will be kept up from year to year, while a survivor of the war remains to honor the memory of his departed comrades. He earnestly desires the public press to lend its friendly aid in bringing to the notice of comrades in all parts of the country in time for simultaneous compliance therewith.
3. Department commanders will use efforts to make this order effective.
By order of
JOHN A. LOGAN,
Commander-in-Chief
N.P. CHIPMAN,
Adjutant General
Official:
WM. T. COLLINS, A.A.G.
Memorial Day, aka Thank You Day
How Americans came to take their success and security for granted is a mystery. It is also dangerous, because much was lost to gain what we now are giving away for free, as if it is ours to give away at all.
Our security belongs to future citizens.
Are so many of our citizens really eyeballs deep in TV entertainment, to the point where they ignore the real problems around us?
All of the happiness, wealth, success, security we enjoy are attributable to mostly men who risked and sacrificed their lives and limbs that the rest of us can BBQ in the back yard in peace.
Obama’s apology to Japan for the US winning the brutal war that Japan started is representative of the weak and shallow thinking dominant in America today. It passes for “thoughtful,” but it is disrespectful to our servicemen who sacrificed for us.
On Monday, Americans officially remember the many men, and a few women, who gave everything so that our daily lives can be enjoyed peacefully. I thank you, each and every one of you, for what you did for me and my family.
This weekend is devoted to those departed and wounded servicemen.
In their honor, fly the flag, or salute it, or have your family say the Pledge of Allegiance to our flag as part of our collective remembrance and thanks. These are tokens of respect and appreciation.
Thank you, dear departed
Memorial Day is a big deal in a Republic like America. Without the sacrifices and daily risks of our armed service personnel, America wouldn’t exist. Our daily freedoms and liberties would be replaced by fear of an all-encompassing government.
Thank you, dear departed.
Veterans’ memorials are often the most beautiful workmanship
–Josh First
Some societies place plain wooden markers to mark their dead.
Most American Indian groups built death platforms lifting the deceased closer to Heaven. After a couple of years, they collapsed, their wooden skeletal remains reminiscent of the human skeletal remains once upon them. Such visual starkness says ‘Hallowed Ground’ more powerfully than most grave sites.
Like the European Celts and Picts, some Indians built small to incredibly large burial mounds, and we have two small ones on our hunting property. Small or huge, they are still just plain piles of dirt. Seven large mounds in a neat row line a remote hillside on northcentral State Forest Land I hunt, an evocative but peaceful reminder of who hunted there before me. Yes, it is clearly a cemetery, but I feel very comfortable there.
Most European countries, and America, place great emphasis on ornate mausoleums, statuary, and finely detailed headstones marking the deceased. Chiseled of hard granite, these are testimonies to either lots of money or lots of love among those left behind, but a big sign of respect, nonetheless.
In a nod to the less-is-more aesthetic, the United States military places simple marble crosses and Jewish stars on the headstones of fallen warriors. While these appear plain, plain, plain to the careless eye, more scrutiny reveals careful craftsmanship; beveled edges, hollow grinds, stippling, and more. Attention to refined details elevate these markers to the level of real workmanship, but avoiding ostentation.
And that is the fitting and well-thought-out purpose to our military cemeteries: Quiet, humble valor that even in death commands respect and appreciation. Subtle statements that go beyond the initial visual “grab.” In their austerity, reminders of sacrifice and loss, and in their subtle details, the best, most careful workmanship for the best of our citizens.
Memorializing these fallen citizens requires us to do more than salute the Flag, eat a hotdog, or buy a new mattress at a low price, although these days saluting the Flag is a pretty bold statement (surely someone will call you a ‘racist’ for doing it). Instead, go by a public cemetery and find the veterans markers, sit down at one or two head stones, and do an internet search (on your smart phone etc.) of the occupant in front and center of you. See if anything can be learned about this person. Or, if you lack a smart device, have a chat with the inhabitant, and thank them for their service. Without their service, none of us would have the smart phones and hot dogs we now take for granted.
This is truly memorializing someone. That is a worthy Memorial Day.