Memorial Day 2008

[admin]

Editorial from APP...

www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080526/OPINION01/805260301/1029

Don't forget our veterans

Another Memorial Day has arrived, another opportunity to show our appreciation for those who have died to secure our nation's freedoms. It is also a time to remember those who came back from war with wounds and memories that will haunt them forever, and the families who waited and prayed for them while overseas and remained supportive upon their return.

The enduring image of this holiday is the fluttering of flags at the grave sites and memorials to those who sacrificed their lives. It is a vestige of the charge issued on the first Memorial Day, May 30, 1868, when John A. Logan, commander-in-chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, stated in General Orders No. 11: "We should guard their graves with sacred vigilance . . . gather around their sacred remains . . . and let us raise above them the dear old flag they saved."

So, the services held, and to be held, at the many war memorials throughout Monmouth and Ocean counties carry on a tradition that's now 140 years old.

Logan's orders also extended to the families. "Let us in this solemn presence renew our pledge to aid and to assist those whom they have left among us as a sacred charge upon the nation's gratitude — the soldier's and sailor's widow and orphan," he wrote.

The spirit of support of the widowed also should extend to the families of all military personnel, especially those posted in lands far from home. They face the often lonely task of keeping households together, then coping with any scars of war on their returning heroes.

Memorial Day is a good time to consider the care of those heroes — whether the aging veterans of World War II, Korea and Vietnam, or the younger returnees from Desert Storm, Iraq and Afghanistan. The nation's promise to provide for their medical needs must be kept. The Department of Veterans Affairs' hospitals and clinics should be fully staffed to serve the growing corps of veterans — competently, efficiently and with minimal bureaucratic obstacles. This year's presidential and congressional candidates should be called to account for our veterans' welfare.

Memorial Day is too important to view it only as a day off from work or school or a first opportunity to fire up the barbecue and enjoy the beach. Visit one of the grave sites or war memorials. Attend a parade that salutes our military, past and present. Stop by a veterans' long-term care center. Show that you remember and appreciate their service.

[admin]

www.nypost.com/seven/05262008/postopinion/editorials/the_dead_we_honor_112606.htm

THE DEAD WE HONOR

May 26, 2008 --

Memorial Day inspires mixed emotions: pride in the valor of those who gave their lives in the cause of freedom; sorrow that such self-sacrifice should have been necessary. The pride in past valor may be best expressed in the St. Crispin's Day speech from "Henry V" (Act IV, Scene iii), delivered by the young king on the eve of the Battle of Agincourt.

St. Crispin's Day

By William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

If we are marked to die, we are enow

To do our country loss; and if to live

The fewer men the greater share of honour.

God's will! I pray thee wish not one man more.

By Jove, I amnot covetous for gold,

Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;

It yearns me not if men my garments wear,

Such outward things dwell not in my desires:

But if it be a sin to covet honour,

I amthe most offending soul alive.

No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England:

God's peace! I would not lose so great an honour

As one man more, methinks, would share from me

For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!

Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,

That he which hath no stomach to this fight,

Let him depart; his passport shall be made

And crowns for convoy put into his purse:

We would not die in that man's company,

That fears his fellowship to die with us.

This day is call'd the feast of Crispian:

He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,

Will stand a tip-toe when this day is named

And rouse him at the name of Crispian.

He that shall live this day, and see old age,

Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbors,

And say "Tomorrow is Saint Crispian:"

Then he will strip his sleeve and show his scars,

And say "These wounds I had on Crispin's day."

Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,

But he'll remember with advantages

What feats he did that day: then shall our names

Familiar in his mouth as household words

Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,

Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,

Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd,

This story shall the good man teach his son;

And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,

From this day to the ending of the world,

But we in it shall be remembered;

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;

For he today that sheds his blood with me

Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,

This day shall gentle his condition:

And gentlemen in England now abed

Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,

And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks

That fought with us upon St. Crispin's day.

The English at Agincourt lost about 700 men; the French, at least 8,000, including seven princes of the blood and the flower of the French chivalry

[admin]

www.nypost.com/seven/05262008/postopinion/opedcolumnists/the_last_doughboy_112561.htm?page=0

THE LAST DOUGHBOY
GREAT WAR VET IS LIVING HISTORY
In his youth: Frank Buckles in uniform about February 1920.

May 26, 2008 -- CHARLES TOWN, W. VA.


NUMBERS come precisely from the agile mind and nimble tongue of Frank Buckles, who seems bemused to say that 4,734,991 Americans served in the military during America's involvement in the First World War and 4,734,990 are gone. He is feeling fine, thank you for asking.

The eyes of the last doughboy are still sharp enough for him to be a keen reader, and his voice is still deep and strong at age 107. He must have been a fine broth of a boy when, at 16, persistence paid off and he found, in Oklahoma City, an Army recruiter who believed, or pretended to, the fibs he had unavailingly told to Marine and Navy recruiters in Kansas about being 18. He grew up on a Missouri farm, not far from where two eminent generals were born - John "Black Jack" Pershing and Omar Bradley.

"Boys in the country," says Buckles, "read the papers," so he was eager to get into the fight over there. He was told that the quickest way was to train for casualty retrieval and ambulance operations. Soon he was headed for England aboard the passenger ship Carpathia, which was celebrated for having, five years earlier, rescued survivors from the Titanic.

Buckles never saw combat but "I saw the results." He seems vague about only one thing: What was the First World War about?

Before leaving England for France, he was stationed near Winchester College, where he noticed "Buckles" among the names that boys had carved in their desks. This ignited his interest in genealogy, which led him to discover that his ancestor Robert Buckles, born in Yorkshire on May 15, 1702, arrived at age 30 in what is now West Virginia.

After Corporal Buckles was mustered out of the Army in 1920 with $143.90 in his pocket, he went to business school in Oklahoma City for five months, then rented a typewriter for $3 a month and sent out job applications. One landed him work in the steamship business, which took him around the world - Latin America, China, Manchuria. And Germany, where, he says, in 1928 "two impressive gentlemen" told him, "We are preparing for another war."

Behind glass in a cabinet in his small sitting room are mementos from his eventful life: a German army belt with a buckle bearing words all nations believe, "Gott Mit Uns (God Is With Us)." The tin cup from which he ate all his meals, such as they were, during the 39 months he was a prisoner of the Japanese - because he was working for a shipping company in Manila on Dec. 7, 1941.

Widowed in 1999, this man who was born during the administration of the 25th president recently voted in West Virginia's primary to select a candidate to be the 44th. His favorite president of his lifetime? The oldest, Ronald Reagan.

Buckles is reading David McCullough's "1776." That date is just 18 years more distant from his birth than today is.

This Memorial Day, Buckles will be feted back in Missouri, at the annual parade and fireworks in Kansas City. Perhaps he will journey to Bethany, to the house on whose porch he sat at age 3, 104 years ago.

He was born in February 1901, seven months before President William McKinley was assassinated. If Buckles had been born 14 months earlier, he would have lived in three centuries. He has lived through 46 percent of the nation's life, a percentage that rises each morning when he does.

On June 28, 1914, an assassin's bullet in Sarajevo killed the heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian empire. The war that followed took more than 116,000 American lives - more than all of America's wars after the Second World War. And in a sense, the First World War took many more American lives because it led to the Second World War and beyond.

The First World War is still taking American lives because it destroyed the Austro-Hungarian, Romanoff and Ottoman empires. A shard of the latter is called Iraq.

The 20th century's winds of war blew billions of ordinary people hither and yon. One of them sits here in a cardigan sweater in an old wood and stone house on a rise on a 330-acre cattle farm. In this case, and probably in every case, the word "ordinary" is inappropriate.

[leelye]

The APP totally dissed Freehold Borough (photos and newsprint) in their parade coverage of today's edition. TSK !! TSK !!

[admin]

Found a mention of the Parade on this strange blog......

thortrains.net/blog/2008/05/26/the-departed/

[admin]

May 27, 2008 12:03:06 GMT -5 leelye said:

The APP totally dissed Freehold Borough (photos and newsprint) in their parade coverage of today's edition. TSK !! TSK !!

They sure did diss us! But have no fear, admin snapped a few hundred pictures, some even turned out good. I will be adding some to the home pages for public review. Such a good and positive part of our town should be on display somewhere! It was a magnificent parade, as always.

If any of you who know me would like copies, just ask via email. I will be happy to send them out. If there is a specific subject or group in the parade you are interested in, let me know that too.

[novillero]

Senate to honor last living U.S. vet of WWI, at 107

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The U.S. Senate will honor the last living American World War I veteran Wednesday, 107-year-old Frank Woodruff Buckles.

Buckles is the last survivor of the more than 2 million U.S. military men sent overseas to fight in what was called the Great War.

Former Sen. Bob Dole, a World War II veteran, will pay tribute along with Sens. Arlen Specter, Harry Reid and Robert Byrd.

Byrd is 90 years old and the longest-serving U.S. senator.

President Bush met with Buckles in March, thanking the veteran for his service and his "love for America."

Bush called Buckles "the last living Doughboy from World War I" and said the centenarian still has a crisp memory. "Doughboy" was a slang term used for U.S. infantrymen.

"Mr. Buckles has a vivid recollection of historic times and one way for me to honor the service of those who wear the uniform in the past and those who wear it today is to herald you, sir, and to thank you very much for your patriotism," the president said, seated next to Buckles in the Oval Office. "We're glad you're here."

Buckles, who turned 107 in February, lied about his age to join the U.S. Army at the age of 16.

During an interview with a television crew from the Department of Veterans Affairs in March, the old-timer reeled off his military serial number, but noted he's still got his dog tags to remind him.

He served before there were Social Security numbers.

According to an autobiography released by the Pentagon, Buckles was eager to join the war. He said his recruiter in the summer of 1917 told him, "The Ambulance Service was the quickest way to get to France," so he took training in trench casualty retrieval.

Buckles eventually was an officer's escort in France before joining a detail transporting German prisoners of war.

He lives on his family's cattle farm near Charles Town, West Virginia.


www.cnn.com/2008/US/06/18/vet.buckles/index.html