Happy Veteran's Day!
- Thread starter Dreadsox
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deep
Blue Crack Addict
salute
blessed be the peace makers
blessed be the peace makers
MrsSpringsteen
Blue Crack Addict
Many thanks to all, I salute them with the utmost respect -the dead and the living
I think of my Priest who is leaving for Iraq on Dec 1st. I am so afraid for him but I admire him so much..
I think of my Priest who is leaving for Iraq on Dec 1st. I am so afraid for him but I admire him so much..
verte76
Blue Crack Addict
Thanks to all of our veterans, you're some of the best.
Irvine511
Blue Crack Supplier
thanks for all you have done and continue to do.
yolland
Forum Moderator
- Joined
- Aug 27, 2004
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- 7,471
financeguy
ONE love, blood, life
Dreadsox playing the peacemaker again. 
VertigoGal
Rock n' Roll Doggie FOB
I have nothing but respect for our vets. They don't choose the wars. These people are braver than I could ever be, and I really wish people particularly at my age would keep their sacrifices in mind.
Our high school does a really neat thing, basically an assembly and vets on the staff and from the community speak. I've actually heard kids complaining because we're not allowed to wear jeans tomorrow, and it pisses me off to no end.
tiny dancer
Blue Crack Distributor
We are having a town parade in honor of these brave men and women.
yolland
Forum Moderator
- Joined
- Aug 27, 2004
- Messages
- 7,471
VertigoGal said:
You're only in high school? Wow, you come across as much older.That's a compliment BTW.
What Is A Veteran?
by Marine Corp chaplain,
Father Denis Edward O'Brian
Some veterans bear visible signs of their service: a missing limb, a jagged
scar, a certain look in the eye. Others may carry the evidence inside them,
a pin holding a bone together, a piece of shrapnel in the leg - or perhaps
another sort of inner steel: the soul's ally forged in the refinery of
adversity.
Except in parades, however, the men and women who have kept America safe
wear no badge or emblem. You can't tell a vet just by looking. What is a
vet?
A vet is the cop on the beat who spent six months in Saudi Arabia sweating
two gallons a day making sure the armored personnel carriers didn't run out
of fuel.
A vet is the barroom loudmouth, dumber than five wooden planks, whose
overgrown frat-boy behavior is outweighed a hundred times in the cosmic
scales by four hours of exquisite bravery near the 38th Parallel.
A vet is the nurse who fought against futility and went to sleep sobbing
every night for two solid years in Da Nang.
A vet is the POW who went away one person and came back another - or didn't
come back at all.
A vet is the drill instructor who has never seen combat - but has saved
countless lives by turning slouchy, no-account punks and gang members into
marines, airmen, sailors, soldiers and coast guardsmen, and teaching them to
watch each other's backs.
A vet is the parade-riding Legionnaire who pins on his ribbons and medals
with a prosthetic hand.
A vet is the career quartermaster who watches the ribbons and medals pass
him by.
A vet is the three anonymous heroes in The Tomb Of The Unknowns, whose
presence at the Arlington National Cemetery must forever preserve the memory
of all the anonymous heroes whose valor dies unrecognized with them on the
battlefield or in the ocean's sunless deep.
A vet is the old guy bagging groceries at the supermarket - palsied now and
aggravatingly slow - who helped liberate a Nazi death camp and who wishes
all day long that his wife were still alive to hold him when the nightmares
come.
A vet is an ordinary and yet extraordinary human being, a person who offered
some of his life's most vital years in the service of his country, and who
sacrificed his ambitions so others would not have to sacrifice theirs.
A vet is a soldier and a savior and a sword against the darkness, and he is
nothing more that the finest, greatest testimony on behalf of the finest,
greatest nation ever known.
So remember, each time you see someone who has served our country, just lean
over and say, "Thank You." That's all most people need, and in most cases it
will mean more than any medals they could have been awarded or were awarded.
Again, two little words that mean a lot to any Veteran -- "THANK YOU."
by Marine Corp chaplain,
Father Denis Edward O'Brian
Some veterans bear visible signs of their service: a missing limb, a jagged
scar, a certain look in the eye. Others may carry the evidence inside them,
a pin holding a bone together, a piece of shrapnel in the leg - or perhaps
another sort of inner steel: the soul's ally forged in the refinery of
adversity.
Except in parades, however, the men and women who have kept America safe
wear no badge or emblem. You can't tell a vet just by looking. What is a
vet?
A vet is the cop on the beat who spent six months in Saudi Arabia sweating
two gallons a day making sure the armored personnel carriers didn't run out
of fuel.
A vet is the barroom loudmouth, dumber than five wooden planks, whose
overgrown frat-boy behavior is outweighed a hundred times in the cosmic
scales by four hours of exquisite bravery near the 38th Parallel.
A vet is the nurse who fought against futility and went to sleep sobbing
every night for two solid years in Da Nang.
A vet is the POW who went away one person and came back another - or didn't
come back at all.
A vet is the drill instructor who has never seen combat - but has saved
countless lives by turning slouchy, no-account punks and gang members into
marines, airmen, sailors, soldiers and coast guardsmen, and teaching them to
watch each other's backs.
A vet is the parade-riding Legionnaire who pins on his ribbons and medals
with a prosthetic hand.
A vet is the career quartermaster who watches the ribbons and medals pass
him by.
A vet is the three anonymous heroes in The Tomb Of The Unknowns, whose
presence at the Arlington National Cemetery must forever preserve the memory
of all the anonymous heroes whose valor dies unrecognized with them on the
battlefield or in the ocean's sunless deep.
A vet is the old guy bagging groceries at the supermarket - palsied now and
aggravatingly slow - who helped liberate a Nazi death camp and who wishes
all day long that his wife were still alive to hold him when the nightmares
come.
A vet is an ordinary and yet extraordinary human being, a person who offered
some of his life's most vital years in the service of his country, and who
sacrificed his ambitions so others would not have to sacrifice theirs.
A vet is a soldier and a savior and a sword against the darkness, and he is
nothing more that the finest, greatest testimony on behalf of the finest,
greatest nation ever known.
So remember, each time you see someone who has served our country, just lean
over and say, "Thank You." That's all most people need, and in most cases it
will mean more than any medals they could have been awarded or were awarded.
Again, two little words that mean a lot to any Veteran -- "THANK YOU."
randhail
Rock n' Roll Doggie
Thanks to those have given of themselves for our protection! 
financeguy
ONE love, blood, life
While it is appropriate to honour veterans, I feel we should always be careful in over glorifying the military, as essentially they are just doing a job like any other (OK, they are more likely to get killed doing it, but you get my point).
Angela Harlem
Jesus Online
There's a few things in life that really get on my fucking tits, and lack of respect is one of them. Like a girl in the studio yeterday (it's the 12th here as I write this) who was muttering to herself and singing to her ipod as the bugle was playing during the minute's silence. Or the people who boo during a national anthem. Wont get into a debate over which country it was right now, but this kind of thing.
I think of my grandfather. And I think that we are all just people like me, remembering people like my grandfather.
Stop trying to get a rise, financeguy, and put this elsewhere. It's painfully rude. Disrespectful. Inappropriate. Whatever.
I think of my grandfather. And I think that we are all just people like me, remembering people like my grandfather.
Stop trying to get a rise, financeguy, and put this elsewhere. It's painfully rude. Disrespectful. Inappropriate. Whatever.
financeguy
ONE love, blood, life
Dulce Et Decorum Est
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.
GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
Wilfred Owen
KIA 1918
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.
GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
Wilfred Owen
KIA 1918
Last edited:
unforgettableFOXfire
I serve MacPhisto
- Joined
- Sep 20, 2001
- Messages
- 2,053
I have respect for most vets. For our grandmothers and grandfathers, great grandmothers and great grandfathers, many of whom lost most of their brothers and sisters. They supposed that they were fighting the war to end all wars, and that their sacrifices would not be in vain. Here we are, still fighting. I'm not naive enough to believe that we can always avoid conflict. We can't. Conflict is an inevitable consequence of two opposing viewpoints with too much pride or faith to engage in any sort of meaningful discourse. We shouldn't fail to realise though, as pre-Great War military leaders failed, that the inevitability of conflict does not equate to a necessity for war.
For our peacemakers, trying to settle international conflicts, to distribute hope to those who suffered in the wake of our hundreds of years of colonization and oppression. This is a noble task, also worthy of our respect. I have friends with parents who are serving as peacemakers overseas. To essentially forfeit your family and life for an indefinite amount of time is an incredible thing.
It kindof irked me today (by kind of, I mean, really fucking pissed me off) that during the minute of silence, a bunch of Asian kids in the library started giggling and photocopying. But hey, obviously you don't appreciate the country you're in and the sacrifices people made to make it the way that it is, and are just like our own freeloading buggers that rather take advantage of it because it's easier to be ignorant than not. *shrug*
I'll chalk it up to a combination of the following: goofy extremist tolerance which I dare to call radical relativism, which opposes truth on a fundamental and flawed level because it assumes itself to be true when it states there is no such thing as truth, and it essentially undermines all human existence and strips meaning from everything; and goofy religious fanatacism which claims to possess all truth and seeks to destroy all opposing viewpoints rather than analyze or reconcile them in any way. Each of these views fuel the other's fires and only serve to create falsity and hate. Both views are ignorant, and both views are what will continue to create wars in the future. Its a shame that both of these views are so prominent in today's world, too. Just goes to show that we still have a long way to go.
There's something to be said about not glorifying the horrors of war. I'd be devestated to lose my brothers. I'd be devestated to lose my friends. I'd be especially devestated if I lost them over something stupid, pointless, unnecessary, unjust, illogical, and immoral. We have wonderful lives because of others who have made sacrifices, and we owe them everything. We can never forget that. We have to be smart enough, though, not to fall into lazy romantic complacency and begin to believe that war is glorious. War is everything but glorious. Tell line after line of soldiers being sent over the top that being mowed down by machine guns in pointless slaughter is glorious. Tell victims of chemical weapon attacks that blind them, turn their lungs to bloody slurry, and gangrenize their wounds that their suffering is glorious. Tell people systematically executed for their beliefs that it is glorious. To families shattered, homeless, with nought for the future that it is glorious. ... To fall into the trappings, the blindness that occurs over time, to believe as our culture once did that war represents something proud and honourable - I would interpret that as a greater disrespect than anything else. We need to move on from that idea. People have done what they've had to do, what was a last resort for them, and that is courage; that is worthy of respect. But for us to turn our backs on that and actively search for conflict so that we can participate in the age old tradition of dehumanization and meaningless slaughter... That is not respecting their sacrifice.
War should only ever be a last resort, when all other means fail. Never a first resort, never an initial reaction, never something we do just because it will be good for the economy, or because the population is bored. If we haven't yet learned that, then we really haven't learned a damn thing. We owe it to our fallen to pursue a path of truth, justice, goodness, and beauty. We fail them when we take the quick and easy way out by escalating and retaliating. We must have the strength that they had, to keep us on the right path in dire straights. Conflict is inevitable, but war is not. As Eleanor Roosevelt said, "No man is defeated without until he is defeated within", and if we give up hope for the future, then we doom ourselves to destruction, so we destroy any meaning the past might have held.
For our peacemakers, trying to settle international conflicts, to distribute hope to those who suffered in the wake of our hundreds of years of colonization and oppression. This is a noble task, also worthy of our respect. I have friends with parents who are serving as peacemakers overseas. To essentially forfeit your family and life for an indefinite amount of time is an incredible thing.
It kindof irked me today (by kind of, I mean, really fucking pissed me off) that during the minute of silence, a bunch of Asian kids in the library started giggling and photocopying. But hey, obviously you don't appreciate the country you're in and the sacrifices people made to make it the way that it is, and are just like our own freeloading buggers that rather take advantage of it because it's easier to be ignorant than not. *shrug*
I'll chalk it up to a combination of the following: goofy extremist tolerance which I dare to call radical relativism, which opposes truth on a fundamental and flawed level because it assumes itself to be true when it states there is no such thing as truth, and it essentially undermines all human existence and strips meaning from everything; and goofy religious fanatacism which claims to possess all truth and seeks to destroy all opposing viewpoints rather than analyze or reconcile them in any way. Each of these views fuel the other's fires and only serve to create falsity and hate. Both views are ignorant, and both views are what will continue to create wars in the future. Its a shame that both of these views are so prominent in today's world, too. Just goes to show that we still have a long way to go.
There's something to be said about not glorifying the horrors of war. I'd be devestated to lose my brothers. I'd be devestated to lose my friends. I'd be especially devestated if I lost them over something stupid, pointless, unnecessary, unjust, illogical, and immoral. We have wonderful lives because of others who have made sacrifices, and we owe them everything. We can never forget that. We have to be smart enough, though, not to fall into lazy romantic complacency and begin to believe that war is glorious. War is everything but glorious. Tell line after line of soldiers being sent over the top that being mowed down by machine guns in pointless slaughter is glorious. Tell victims of chemical weapon attacks that blind them, turn their lungs to bloody slurry, and gangrenize their wounds that their suffering is glorious. Tell people systematically executed for their beliefs that it is glorious. To families shattered, homeless, with nought for the future that it is glorious. ... To fall into the trappings, the blindness that occurs over time, to believe as our culture once did that war represents something proud and honourable - I would interpret that as a greater disrespect than anything else. We need to move on from that idea. People have done what they've had to do, what was a last resort for them, and that is courage; that is worthy of respect. But for us to turn our backs on that and actively search for conflict so that we can participate in the age old tradition of dehumanization and meaningless slaughter... That is not respecting their sacrifice.
War should only ever be a last resort, when all other means fail. Never a first resort, never an initial reaction, never something we do just because it will be good for the economy, or because the population is bored. If we haven't yet learned that, then we really haven't learned a damn thing. We owe it to our fallen to pursue a path of truth, justice, goodness, and beauty. We fail them when we take the quick and easy way out by escalating and retaliating. We must have the strength that they had, to keep us on the right path in dire straights. Conflict is inevitable, but war is not. As Eleanor Roosevelt said, "No man is defeated without until he is defeated within", and if we give up hope for the future, then we doom ourselves to destruction, so we destroy any meaning the past might have held.
U2democrat
Blue Crack Addict
I'd like to honor my late grandfather who served in the army and went island-hopping in the Pacific theater, and my other grandfather still living who bravely protected the Atlantic coast from German U-Boats in the Coast Guard.
sue4u2
Rock n' Roll Doggie VIP PASS
Thanks Dad, I love and miss you ..
05/06/1923 - 07/19/2005
WWII vet
and my cousin Jerry, who died in 1973 from exposer to agent orange druing the Vietnam war..
I've missed you for along time, love
05/06/1923 - 07/19/2005
WWII vet
and my cousin Jerry, who died in 1973 from exposer to agent orange druing the Vietnam war..
I've missed you for along time, love
MsGiggles
War Child
- Joined
- Mar 30, 2005
- Messages
- 905
We had a parade but this year it was more special - they were honoring a marine unit that just came back from Iraq - and 20 or so marines had been killed from that unit. Some of the stories the guys gave brought me to tears 
nbcrusader
Blue Crack Addict
A belated salute to all vets
Thank you for serving for the benefit of others.
Thank you for serving for the benefit of others.
MrsSpringsteen
Blue Crack Addict
I love this picture, I received it in an e-mail a long time ago..
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