Veterans Day

                                                      Honoring all who served . . .

Go Vets!

Josie's class learned about Veteran's Day and when I told her that Grumpy was a vet, she decided to decorate for the holiday.

With thanks to all who chose to serve their country. I wish their country could manage to do better by them.

 

Veterans Day

A hats off to all who've served our country in the Armed Forces.  May our country do better by the many who are homeless and/or suffering from disabilities incurred during their service. 

 

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Butterfat

 More and more these days I find myself saying "Oh, for god's sake" at some inanity. Yes, I'm a grouchy old lady and some of what annoys me, on reflection, probably shouldn't.  But this particular article, its headline shouting FREEDOM to decry public schools' ban on whole fat milk (inspired by the prevalence of childhood obesity,) had me shaking my head.

 Unsurprisingly the article is from a trade journal aimed at dairy farmers. (We got on their mailing list years ago when we had a milk cow and filled out a USDA survey attesting to same.)

But the above headline--what with Veteran's Day and all--got me thinking. What are the American freedoms, the freedoms those vets served and fought and died for? What about the freedom of those children to choose Coca-Cola instead of milk? I'd hazard a guess that some of the same dairy farmers behind this campaign wouldn't see that as a freedom.

 I'd also hazard a guess that many of them wouldn't see freedom from hunger as an American freedom, worthy of support with their tax dollars.

Throwing about a term like "American freedom" in service of an industry is worrying and all too common. In these uneasy days when idiots storm the capitol to overturn a free election and those same idiots claim the name of patriots, when the American flag and the flag of the traitorous Confederacy can be seen in unironic juxtaposition on too many pickup trucks, when too many of our flag-waving politicians seem to have joined a cult, working for the approval of their Dear Leader rather than the good of the country, when far too many of our citizens reject science in favor of Fox News and Google, I find it challenging to be proud to be a US citizen.

And the more headlines like this I see, the more challenging it is. I love this troubled country and still have hope that her better angels will prevail. Without waving flags.

Remembering . . .

 

 Remembering those who served, who put their country before themselves. They were not suckers or losers, no matter what the Loser in the White House says. 

Veterans Day 2019

Just in time for Veteran's Day, President Bonespurs is ordered to make restitution for using donations to vets as a personal piggy bank.

Turns out, according to 45*'s admissions in court papers, that the  fund-raiser for vets in Iowa, days before the nominating caucuses, was actually a campaign event and the campaign had complete control over the money raised.  See full article 

HERE.

Nobody loves vets and military people more that El Cheeto--they're so useful for photo ops. (Unless, of course, they're testifying against him like Lt. Col. Vindman.)

Meanwhile, there are homeless vets, sick vets, vets being deported, vets in every kind of need. . . in what was once a great country. 

Saying Thank you for your service isn't enough.

Honoring those who served . . . and lamenting those who have been used and forgotten.

Veterans Day

. . .
Where have all the soldiers gone, long time passing?
Where have all the soldiers gone, long time ago?
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Gone to graveyards, everyone.
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Oh, when will they ever learn? 
. . .

Veteran's Day Wish

Veterans Day and we honor those who served their country in the military. As we should. Those who voluntarily put themselves in harm's way are worthy of our respect. 

But I wish that there were some sort of universal requirement for service in order to be a full citizen with the right to vote and run for office -- say, a two year stint of service to the country. This service would not be limited to the military but would include all sorts of areas: conservation, infrastructure work, education, social services, etc. Kinda like some of the programs of the Depression era. But in my vision, work would be found even for folks with disabilities.  

Ideally this service would occur as soon as an individual left school or attained voting age -- but would be available at any time in later life if a person decided voting privileges were worth the sacrifice.

Said service would employ and teach a trade to many and perhaps steer others toward a profession, or give them experience in the field they'd been studying.

There would be those who didn't care about voting and that's fine with me -- they'd be better out of the voting pool. But that group who have other priorities, say, making money, but still want to be elected to office -- well, we could do without them too.

I first encountered this idea many years ago in Heinlein's Starship Troopers (don't judge) and it still makes sense to me. 

Over at Stonekettle Station, Jim Wright also has Heinlein on his mind this Veteran's Day. Jim writes an excellent essay. And he, unlike me, is a vet. Go HERE to read his thoughts on serving in the military.

Veterans Day -- Faces from WWII . . .

In the midst of my on-going campaign of de-clutterization, I came across an envelope of photos from my father's WWII service. (The pic above is not my father -- he was evidently as camera shy as I am.)

None of the pictures had any information as to who or where but they are still poignant and compelling to me -- all these young men caught up in a global war. 

Many of these first pictures are from the early days in training camps -- Nevada and California. I think that the tall fella on the left in the picture below is my father.

My parents were on their honeymoon when Pearl Harbor was bombed. Shortly thereafter my mother followed my father west to an assortment of Army posts.

In camp . . .

Patriotic postcards. . .

Beefcake . . .

Quite a few wives followed their husbands to training camp and the result, not surprisingly, was a fine crop of babies . . .

.

Of which, I was one -- I was born in Indio, California. The frowning child below is me -- I don't know who the other people are. 

                            

Then my father was ordered to Burma. He never talked much about it so my information is scant. He had a pet monkey; the jeeps had to have steel posts installed on their hoods because of incidents in which the enemy had strung piano wire across roads and decapitated unwary jeep occupants. 

I think this is a picture of the camp in Burma.

Note the bamboo construction . . .

I hope all these young men made it back to enjoy those babies and make some more. Theirs was, I think, the last unambiguous war -- a "good" war, if there can be such a thing.

Thank you to all the veterans.  

(My father, Frank Love Lane jr.)

On Veterans Day

This is the day to remember our veterans -- all those, living or dead, who served in the military. My husband, father, father-in-law, brother, brother-in-law, uncles, and one aunt, all served, as well as many of my friends. It's  an honorable thing to have done. 

We are encouraged to thank veterans for their service... and that's great. 

But sometimes  thank you isn't enough.

(Image from THIS SITE)

The following statistics are from the website of The Coalition for Homeless Veterans:

DEMOGRAPHICS OF HOMELESS VETERANS

• 12% of the homeless adult population are veterans
• 20% of the male homeless population are veterans
• 68% reside in principal cities
• 32% reside in suburban/rural areas
• 51% of individual homeless veterans have disabilities
• 50% have serious mental illness
• 70% have substance abuse problems
• 51% are white males, compared to 38% of non-veterans
• 50% are age 51 or older, compared to 19% non-veterans

It's estimated that almost 50, 000 veterans are homeless on any given night. (The fact there are around 1,750,000 homeless in all is truly shameful. Statistics HERE)

Thank you for your service . . . no panhandling allowed.

On the Eleventh Hour

. . . of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918, The Great War, the War to End All Wars, stuttered to a conclusion. Armistice Day on November 11 was created to honor the veterans of that war.

In 1953, Armistice Day became Veterans Day in honor of all veterans .

They're back at the grocery store, just like on Memorial Day, nice old guys in their VFW caps, offering the little red poppies as reminders of those who died serving their country.

I shove a dollar in their jar and thank them. As I push the shopping cart out to my car, I wonder what they may have seen . . . what their wars were like. . .

My father served in Burma in WWII-- and he never talked much about it. He told us about his pet monkey. And he told us how the open Jeeps they drove had tall metal posts installed on the front bumpers -- a retrofitted necessity after several gruesome incidents involving piano wire stretched across narrow roads, just at neck height for a rider.

Aftermath
Have you forgotten yet?...
For the world's events have rumbled on since those gagged days,
Like traffic checked while at the crossing of city-ways:
And the haunted gap in your mind has filled with thoughts that flow
Like clouds in the lit heaven of life; and you're a man reprieved to go,
Taking your peaceful share of Time, with joy to spare.
But the past is just the same--and War's a bloody game...
Have you forgotten yet?...
Look down, and swear by the slain of the War that you'll never forget.


Do you remember the dark months you held the sector at Mametz--
The nights you watched and wired and dug and piled sandbags on parapets?
Do you remember the rats; and the stench
Of corpses rotting in front of the front-line trench--
And dawn coming, dirty-white, and chill with a hopeless rain?
Do you ever stop and ask, 'Is it all going to happen again?'

Do you remember that hour of din before the attack--
And the anger, the blind compassion that seized and shook you then
As you peered at the doomed and haggard faces of your men?
Do you remember the stretcher-cases lurching back
With dying eyes and lolling heads--those ashen-grey
Masks of the lads who once were keen and kind and gay?

Have you forgotten yet?...
Look up, and swear by the green of the spring that you'll never forget.
Siegfried Sassoon


(This is a re-post)