Memorial day

[Bindlestiff]

Well, Memorial day weekend is almost here and I hope everyone has a great weekend with family and friends. Many Americans only think of it as a long holiday weekend and never take the time to think about why its a holiday. I am sure that all of us that have served in the military think of it as it was intended - a day to reflect on the sacrifices of the men and women that gave all for us.

I saw this on the internet and thought I would post it for those who may be interested, I think its appropriate for Memorial Day.

[Dean Romig]

I Remember Them

Thanks Robin.






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[C grade]

Robin
I just finished "The Last Stand of Fox Company". A factual recounting of a Marine Company , 250 Marines, that held a hill in Korea against 50,000 Chinese Infantry. They lost 140 men and killed 3.500 in a 4 day battle. Memorial day is for all those incredible strong brave men.
David

[Dean Romig]

I hope nobody gets tired of my posting this each Memorial Day.



.Not Without Honor
From “Tranquility”
by Col. H. P. Sheldon
The Derrydale Press 1936

The most rock-bound of all the traditions of Tranquility Village requires each able-bodied householder on the morning of May 30th each year to rise early and unfurl Old Glory over his front porch. After breakfast the children of the village go to the woods to gather wildflowers with which to decorate the flag marked headstones in the old cemetery – they bring great bunches of wild violets, of crimson and white trillium, the creamy ivory of the bloodroot, and, when the season has been fortuitous, as often happened, there are clusters of the shy pink lady’s slipper and the rare marsh azaleas. While the village youngsters are thus engaged, the matrons cut sprays of lilac and syringe. All morning long, quiet groups wander among the gray headstones, leaving behind them dashes of fresh, lovely color scattered over the low mounds in that quiet place. That there were soldier graves enough to be decorated, Heaven knows! Here lay the founders of the village – the almost legendary Four Rangers – who had fought under Abercrombie at Ticonderoga and Wolf at Abraham’s Heights to win from the French the very land where they had settled when peace was won, and where now the children of their children’s children’s children laid bunches of blue and white hepatica on the sod above their old mouldering bones.
Only a small portion of Tranquility’s soldier sons slept in the village cemetery. The rest of them bivouacked in alien fields, places with names like Lundy’s Lane, Cowpens, Saratoga, Yorktown, Chapultepec, Cerro Gordo, Plattsburg, Manassas, Antietam, Cedar Creek, Yellow Tavern, Gettysburg, and San Juan, to name a few. Others slept out in “the pleasant land of France.” Long after “the Captains and the Kings” had departed, some but not all of those who had fallen on the Marne and in the Argonne came quietly home to Tranquility in their flag-draped coffins, and for a considerable time scarcely a week went by in which the old burying ground didn’t echo to the measured crash of volley firing and the poignant notes of “Taps.”
It is not, however, a day of public mourning. Far from it. Here and there among the graves some woman kneels and you see the flutter of her handkerchief, but in general the day is an occasion of solemn pride. There are apt to be some tight throats and wet eyes in Memorial Hall when the white-haired Post Adjutant rises and calls the roll.
“Allen!” “Ames!” “Arthur!” “Belden!” “Cummings, Edward!” “Cummings, James!” and so on down the list, with the cracked old voices answering up briskly, “Here!” “Here!” “Here!”
It’s a short roster now – only eight the last time – and the throat and eye trouble comes whenever the Adjutant calls a name and there is no answer save a brief silence broken at last by the roll of the drum.
The World War came along just in the nick of time to restore to these ceremonies some of the sparkle that used to mark the exercises in the days when the boys who had followed Grant, Meade, and Sheridan were still young enough to step out well in ranks and shoulder their muskets with snap and precision. For one thing the Legion Post had one of the finest bands in the whole country with a full complement of the long French trumpets which do so much for martial music. When Long Jim Forbes stepped to the front of the band with the twelve trumpeters ranked behind him – each man with his trumpet held jauntily against his hip – and when Jim raised his sword to signal for “Madelon” or “Le Regiment du Sombre et Meuse,” it would make any man tingle to see those bright bugles tossed high in the salute and to hear their gay challenging notes ring out across the old village square.
No; there is much about the day that is bright and vivid and brave and not at all sad, but one May 30th was an exception.
A few days earlier an old veteran of the Civil War had heard in his dulling ears a last “Call to Quarters,” and now the whole township was turned out to escort its old friend to the quiet bivouac on the hillside where his own place had been prepared for him by loving hands. There were signs of mourning in plenty – if one knew how to recognize them when he saw them.
The grocer would say to the harnessmaker:
“The old Major hez gone, they say. I swan, I don’t know haow we’ll git along without him. Next to old Colonel Cushing I suppose he waz about the best-liked man in Tranquility.”
“No daoubt about it,” the other would reply soberly.
“Hain’t goin’ to forget haow the two of ‘em took up my quarrel time that feller sued me on my title. The Major come from far away, too, but he couldn’t hev been no friendlier if he’d been born an’ raised right here in the village.”
Such humble tributes were current everywhere along the shaded streets. Their casualness might have kept the stranger from realizing that he was in a community truly bowed down by grief.
Gifted with an understanding even beyond that of most of her sex, the Dark-Haired Lady had repressed a housewifely urge to brighten up the tarnished gold of the wound and service chevrons on the sleeves of her Captain’s O.D. coat. A touch of silver polish on a wad of cotton would do it easily, but they had to be left just as they were and she knew it. Nevertheless every bronze button and every battle star on the campaign ribbon shone with a burnished luster when it was time for the Captain to dress. So did the Sam Brown belt, the saber hilt and scabbard and the sleek tan boots.
In the afternoon he would march at the head of the close-ranked platoons of his comrades, trig and taut and looking to her eyes just as he had one day a few years ago when she had watched his regiment march off to the tune of “The Girl I Left Behind Me” to a destination that the orders euphemistically mentioned as “Unknown.” The destination today was known and the route was shorter, yet in a way it was longer, too, since for one of them it reached out to eternity. The line of the march began at Memorial Hall, then down State Street, turning left on Washington and over Prospect to where the wrought-iron gates of Cedar Hill Cemetery stood wide in welcome to the one whom they would bring with them riding along on a caisson under the vivid flag and followed by a few old men in blue uniforms with black soft hats shading their old eyes.
From Memorial Hall to the Cemetery is only a scant half mile, but now it seems too great a distance for legs once good enough to carry their owners on many a forced march with the Army of the Potomac. In fact it has been customary for several years to provide horse-drawn carriages for the old soldiers. This year they needed only one.
Dalrymple, who owned the livery stable, told his boys to put the pair of chestnuts on the three-seated surrey.
“That’ll take care of all of ‘em,” he explained.
“Comfertably, too, naow ‘at the old Major ain’t ridin’ with ‘em. Le’s see, ain’t but eight of ’em left, is they?”
Nevertheless when Dalrymple pulled up his pair in front of Memorial Hall with a decorous flourish he met with an unlooked-for rebuff.
Uncle Bill Paraday, the fox and honey hunter – Sergeant William Paraday, of Stannard’s Brigade – ordered him indignantly and peremptorily to return his “danged burooch” to the stable.
“We’re a marchin’ today, an’ I ruther guess, by Mighty, we ain’t so dummed ol’ an’ crippled up but we c’n manage to foller the ol’ Major on foot an’ keep up to him, too, on his last ride! No, sir!”
So, after all, the horses and glittering carriage were not in the slow procession that moved along the street toward sundown. Eight old men in blue followed the lumbering caisson on foot, doing their very best to compel from stiffened joints and weary muscles some semblance of youthful gait and temper.
Judge Stovall for once in his career had stooped to ask for political preference. It was a strange plum he sought, too. Through his friend, the Governor, he had solicited the loan of a field gun and men to serve it, and word had come back to say the State was glad to honor a citizen so worthy.
The gun had arrived that morning and was placed in the Square with its slender muzzle laid level, its crew standing easy, the focal point of the eyes of all the urchins in town who had managed to escape the services in the Hall, which, no doubt, would have bored them anyhow. The parade was formed at last, and at the first note of the slow march a cloud of white smoke burst from the gun’s muzzle and the crash of its great voice echoed among the hills. As the cortege moved toward the cemetery the gun at minute intervals continued to do honor to the man on the caisson, its solemn thunder falling on the quivering air while the acrid smoke of the discharges drifted across the empty streets.
It ceased when the open grave was reached. A hush ensued, unbroken by any sound from the multitude that had entered the environs and now stood among the headstones. A thrush, a friendly bird, chose that perfect moment of silence to sing in the maples.
Parson Drake read the service ending with the humble, beautiful supplication,
“Lord, suffer now thy servant to depart in peace!”
Then Colonel Cushing detached his tall figure from the little group of veterans in blue and came forward to the graveside.
For a long minute he gazed down upon the walnut casket that gave what shelter there remained for his old friend.
When he turned there was a look of humility on his fine old face. The Colonel was an orator, a trained, expert and polished speaker, a man who understood the courtly, gracious usages of the spoken word. A few years back, when a group of rascals in high places had conspired to commit treason against the very nation they were pledged to serve, it had been his voice and words that denounced them in phrases that were like saber slashes and drove the money changers from the temple.
But this afternoon, with the sun sinking to the crest of Mount Defiance and the grave of the old Major open before him, he felt himself not in the mood for practiced oratory. He rested a hand on the dark polished wood and spoke simply.
“Some of you may not know how Major John Bristol happened to come to our town. I met him during the heat of battle at Gettysburg. We disagreed that day. But afterward while we lay for months in the same hospital we forgot our earlier differences. An affection developed between us that has lasted nearly sixty years. He was persuaded, when the war was over, to come to Tranquility and join me in the practice of law. There is no single person here who has not benefitted in some way from having known this kindly courteous man, myself most of all. We shall miss him – a gallant soldier, a loyal friend and a great gentleman.”
The clear voice faltered for the first time, but the gray head was erect, even though tears ran down either cheek, when he turned.
“He told me once, long ago, that if it should be not too inappropriate a request, he would greatly like to have his favorite marching song played during the services that we are performing for him today.”
He raised his hand to signal to Long Jim Forbes, who stood waiting for it, and who in turn faced his musicians and flashed his sword.
The long trumpets flourished, their silvery notes rang out. Then came the full band with the fifes screaming, the drums rattling and the horns perfectly launched into a gay and gallant refrain. It was both reckless and wistful – a soldier tune if ever there was one – the sort of thing that a column on route march likes to hear from its band when it is entering a village where there will be pretty girls looking out of the windows along the street. Not just the sort of thing you’d expect to hear at a funeral, perhaps, but then, if you listened, you seemed to hear the crying of lost, gallant things in the wail of the fifes that was enough to tear your heart out. It ran and raced and laughed and wept and rollicked among the old stones, and filled the place with strange ghosts summoned from far fields. Then the brilliant, sparkling, homesick thing swept to a close. There was a final dauntless roll from the snare drums, a skirl from the pipes – and silence.
Colonel Cushing and Sergeant Bill Paraday stepped forward and lifted the flag from the coffin.
There was nothing unusual about the rest of the ceremony. A Legion platoon fired the regulation volleys and a Legion trumpeter blew Taps in the twilight gathering under the elms and maples. No one there saw anything not in harmony with the spirit and meaning of the day in the fact that the soldier tune played by the Yankee band that day at the grave of their beloved townsman was the Southland’s “Dixie” and that the flag lifted so gently from the coffin lid by the two old Union veterans was the Stars and Bars.





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[BRDHNTR]

I remember the Tet offensive. We steamed up the river and expected to have to evacuate the Marines holding out. Actually Marines don't hold out and didn't. They attacked. We provided five inch gun fire support. Such brave men. Never forgets

[Bill Murphy]

I served a temporary duty in the First Army and Fort Lee Honor Guard in 1968 and 1969 while I was on active duty stateside. Soldiers in the South and the Appalachian region suffered the greatest death rate during the Viet Nam conflict of any area of the country, as I understand it. I don't remember burying a rich kid and I don't remember meeting rich parents of the kids I buried. I know we are killing a certain number of company grade officers, now, as in Viet Nam. However, young enlisted men make up the greater number of deaths. I guess that will never change.

[Dean Romig]

Originally Posted by Bill Murphy

Young enlisted men make up the greater number of deaths. I guess that will never change.

They are the expendables of war - the pawns of the bureaucrats and politicians.





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[BS]

Originally Posted by Dean Romig

They are the expendables of war - the pawns of the bureaucrats and politicians.





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Dean,
I whole heartedly disagree with that statement.

[Bindlestiff]

There are not many of these guys left these days, I wish there were, we need them now as much as in the 40's. All the men in the generation preceding me in my family went to War in the 1940's and all saw combat. One didn't come home alive and one came home never to walk again. They are all gone now, and so are all the many WWII vets that I knew personally in my lifetime. Their ranks are getting very thin.

The actor, Gary Sinise, is one of the few "Hollywood" types around today that genuinely respects all veterans. He stands almost alone working for vets today in the manor that so many "Hollywood" greats did 50 years ago. He is a real patriot. I wish more people with "The Bully Pulpit" would follow his lead; maybe then America could get its pride back again.

Check out what Gary is doing....

[Dean Romig]

Originally Posted by Brett Souder

Dean,
I whole heartedly disagree with that statement.

I do too Brett. I vehemently disagree with the (some) bureaucrats and politicians who view the 'expense' of our men and women in uniform as the 'cost' of war.





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