Thank you Armed Forces

[readyaimduck]

Be it Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines....any and all facets within the defense of our country.
I thank all of  you that have served, from the bottom of my heart
Because of all efforts of those that fought, died or came home...albeit wounded, we have the freedoms that others don't.

It is now about a 3 day vacation...and others that have passed before us. 
Let us remember, it started with the Civil War Vets.   

It wasn't about other countries...it was about our own!.

We agree to disagree...and we disagree that we agree...
The battle lines get blurred over passion, it seems.

Have a safe weekend!
ready

[Diane Amberg]

Well said Ready.Thank you.
Now, with a nasty storm line coming across, including here, the wonderful DC concert has abruptly been cancelled for the safety of all. And a tropical storm, just below hurricane strength. is off Florida. Welcome to summer!

[Warph]

[Warph]

"My brother came home from Viet Nam but he left a big part of him there. He didn't die from the injuries that earned him, his purple heart but the war did kill him." ---Anonymous

Today is Memorial Day, a day set aside to traditionally honor and remember our war dead.  I was one of the generations that was not supposed to see any war, unfortunately it did not work out that way for me and a lot of my classmates in 1965.  Today we will give you a little history most people will never know.  Please take a moment out of your busy day to reflect on these number and statistic's from my war ... Viet Nam.

There are 58,267 names now listed on that polished black wall, including those added in 2010.  The names are arranged in the order in which they were taken from us by date and within each date the names are alphabetized. It is hard to believe it is 36 years since the last casualties.  I was there in 1967 some 45 years ago, the ripe old age of 19 years.

The first known casualty was Richard B. Fitzgibbon, of North Weymouth , Mass. Listed by the U.S. Department of Defense as having been killed on June 8, 1956. His name is listed on the Wall with that of his son, Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Richard B. Fitzgibbon III, who was killed on Sept. 7, 1965.

There are three sets of fathers and sons on the Wall.  39,996 on the Wall were just 22 or younger.  8,283 were just 19 years old.

The largest age group, 33,103 were 18 years old.   12 soldiers on the Wall were 17 years old.  5 soldiers on the Wall were 16 years old.  One soldier, PFC Dan Bullock was 15 years old.

997 soldiers were killed on their first day in Vietnam ... 1,448 soldiers were killed on their last day in Vietnam.  31 sets of brothers are on the Wall.  Thirty one sets of parents lost two of their sons.

54 soldiers attended Thomas Edison High School in Philadelphia . I wonder why so many from one school?  8 Women are on the Wall. Nursing the wounded.  244 soldiers were awarded the Medal of Honor during the Vietnam War; 153 of them are on the Wall.

Beallsville , Ohio with a population of 475 lost 6 of her sons.  West Virginia had the highest casualty rate per capita in the nation. There are 711 West Virginians on the Wall.

The Marines of Morenci – They led some of the scrappiest high school football and basketball teams that the little Arizona copper town of Morenci (pop. 5,058) had ever known and cheered. They enjoyed roaring beer busts. In quieter moments, they rode horses along the Coronado Trail, stalked deer in the Apache National Forest . And in the patriotic camaraderie typical of Morenci's mining families, the nine graduates of Morenci High enlisted as a group in the Marine Corps. Their service began on Independence Day, 1966. Only 3 returned home.

The Buddies of Midvale – LeRoy Tafoya, Jimmy Martinez, Tom Gonzales were all boyhood friends and lived on three consecutive streets in Midvale, Utah on Fifth, Sixth and Seventh avenues. They lived only a few yards apart. They played ball at the adjacent sandlot ball field. And they all went to Vietnam . In a span of 16 dark days in late 1967, all three would be killed. LeRoy was killed on Wednesday, Nov. 22, the fourth anniversary of John F. Kennedy's assassination. Jimmy died less than 24 hours later on Thanksgiving Day. Tom was shot dead assaulting the enemy on Dec. 7, Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day.

The most casualty deaths for a single day was on January 31, 1968 ~ 245 deaths.  The most casualty deaths for a single month was May 1968 – 2,415 casualties were incurred.

For most Americans who read this they will only see the numbers that the Vietnam War created. To those of us who survived the war, and to the families of those who did not, we see the faces, we feel the pain that these numbers created. We are, until we too pass away, haunted with these numbers, because they were our friends, fathers, husbands, wives, sons and daughters. We saw their bodies wrapped in the American Flag and shipped home.

There are no noble wars, just noble warriors.

[Warph]

The 25 Best Quotes From American Soldiers


25) "Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes!" -- William Prescott at the Battle Of Bunker Hill

24) "To be prepared for war is one of the most effective means of preserving peace." -- George Washington

23) "When this war is over, the Japanese language will be spoken only in hell!" -- Admiral Bill Halsey on December 7, 1941

22) "Nuts." -- The response of General Anthony MacAuliffe, when asked to surrender during the Battle of the Bulge, 1944

21) "I tremble for my country when I hear of confidence expressed in me. I know too well my weakness, that our only hope is in God." -- Robert E. Lee

20) "War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over." -- Gen William T. Sherman

19) "Of the Marines on Iwo Jima, uncommon valor was a common virtue." -- Chester W. Nimitz

18) "They've got us surrounded again, the poor b@stards." -- Creighton W. Abrams, Battle of the Bulge

17) "Don't fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here"
-- Captain John Parker, 1775

16) "We have gone forth from our shores repeatedly over the last hundred years and we've done this as recently as the last year in Afghanistan and put wonderful young men and women at risk, many of whom have lost their lives, and we have asked for nothing except enough ground to bury them in, and otherwise we have returned home to seek our own lives in peace."
-- Colin Powell

15) "We have met the enemy and they are ours!" -- Oliver Hazard Perry

14) "It is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us freedom of the press. It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech. It is the soldier, not the campus organizer, who has given us the freedom to demonstrate. It is the soldier, who salutes the flag, who serves beneath the flag, and whose coffin is draped by the flag, who allows the protester to burn the flag." -- Father Dennis Edward O'Brien, USMC

13) "I wish to have no connection with any ship that does not sail fast; for I intend to go in harm's way."
-- John Paul Jones

12) "Damn the torpedoes, Full speed ahead!" -- Admiral David Glasgow Farragut

11) "I have only two men out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold."
-- Clifton B. Cates, Belleau Wood, July 1918

10) "Yonder are the Hessians. They were bought for seven pounds and tenpence a man. Are you worth more? Prove it. Tonight the American flag floats from yonder hill or Molly Stark sleeps a widow!"
-- John Stark at the Battle of Bennington in 1777

9) "Godd@m it, you'll never get the Purple Heart hiding in a foxhole! Follow me!" -- Henry P. Crowe

8 ) "Victory was never in doubt. Its cost was...What was in doubt, in all our minds, was whether there would be any of us left to dedicate our cemetery at the end, or whether the last Marine would die knocking out the last Japanese gun and gunner." -- Major General Graves B. Erskin in reference to the Battle Of Iwo Jima

7) "Come on, you sons of b!tches! Do you want to live forever?" -- Dan Daly, WWI

6) "Don't you forget that you're First Marines! Not all the communists in Hell can overrun you!"
-- Lieutenant General Lewis "Chesty" Puller when surrounded by eight enemy divisions

5) "Get there first with the most." -- Nathan Bedford Forrest

4) "It is fatal to enter a war without the will to win it." -- Douglas MacArthur

3) "I am besieged by a thousand or more of the Mexicans under Santa Anna. I have sustained a continued bombardment for twenty-four hours and have not lost a man. The enemy have demanded a surrender... otherwise the garrison is to be put to the sword if the place is taken. I have answered the summons with a cannon shot, and our flag still waves proudly from the walls. I shall never surrender or retreat." -- William B. Travis, Alamo

2) "If you kill enough of them, they stop fighting." -- Curtis LeMay

1) "No b@stard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb b@stard die for his country." -- George Patton