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 Greetings! You are reading an article from The Mudville Gazette. To reach the front page, with all the latest news and views, click the logo above or "main" below. Thanks for stopping by! May 30, 2005 Memorial DayBy GreyhawkWelcome to Memorial Day weekend, 2005. This is a time set aside to remember those who gave their all for their country. Celebrate that. If you're fortunate enough to live in the nation that remains the last best hope for freedom then do those things this weekend that bring you joy. Cook out. Travel. Be with friends and family. Eat, drink, and be merry. If you have a moment, a toast to those who've made it possible would be fine. You honor their sacrifice by living well. This post will remain at the top through the weekend, with new entries added below. They won't all be "new" though - here at Mudville we'll be revisiting a few stories that shouldn't be forgotten, saluting those warriors who won't return from far off lands, who've moved on to other distant shores. In that spirit I offer again the lines of verse I wrote last Christmas in Baghdad. I think this was the holiday it was written for anyway. While reading the posts in this series you may want to visit the comments section too. Relatives and friends of these heroes often leave a few words, and leave me humbled. They are heroes too, and to all who might pass by this way I salute you. Tending Distant Fires Far from hearth and home, watching What tales we'll tell When things grim Some distant sunset, vision fading Saluting fallen friends whose names Posted by Greyhawk / May 30, 2005 11:46 PM | Permalink 36 TrackBacksMemorials Honoring the fallen heros of past and present wars on Memorial Day is a thing that is not exclusive to service members present and retired, but there is no doubt that they, and the family members of the fallen, Read More Travelers leaving for the Memorial Day Weekend Friday had plenty going against them, including full Read More Austin Bay speaks of behalf of Tejanos in Action, as this group of Hispanic vets honors indigent American veterans buried in a local cemetery. They gave their all to a country that may not alw... Read More [This post will remain up top through Monday.] In some peoples' opinions, there is a certain nobility associated with serving in the armed forces, regardless of the service performed. Perhaps this is so. I served, but my contribution in the... Read More My Dad will speak at the dedication of a memorial to those who have fallen in his hometown in Nebraska on Monday. Read More This is the final chapter of last year's post. To keep in synch, read the post above this if you haven't already. "First Sergeant, Call the Roll." Lieutenant Leonard Cowherd... Lieutenant Leonard Cowherd... Lieutenant Leonard Cowherd... "First Sergeant... Read More For Memorial Day I send you to The Barking Moonbat Early Warning System for a little education about The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. I have had the honor to see the tomb and the changing of the guard in Read More Military blogger "Greyhawk," an American soldier currently serving in Afghanistan, offers a memoriam to Italian Brigadier Giuseppe Coletta, a Sicilian officer in the Italian military police who was killed in a Nov. 12, 2003 bomb blast in an-Nasiriyah, ... Read More Blackfive and Mudville Gazette have their posts and roundups today. As a gesture of respect and gratitude to our American readers and team members, so we we.... Read More Blackfive and Mudville Gazette have their posts and roundups today. As a gesture of respect and gratitude to our American readers and team members, so we we.... Read More How exactly am I supposed to feel today? I don't know. I do know this; I value the Freedom that I have back home and the USA is the greatest country in the world no matter what anybody says. Read More Happy Memorial Day. Blackfive and Greyhawk offer fitting tributes to those who have sacrificed for this great nation. Here is a great video salute as well (thanks, evariste!). Enjoy your friends and family, and be sure to take a moment... Read More There's a fundamental difference between last year's Memorial Day and this one, a difference that I have been dwelling on all weekend: last year I didn't have any veterans to mourn. I've thought all weekend about what I wanted to... Read More Says Clifford, “Our goal is to visit the bedsides of these amputees, talk to them about their dreams, and then help them achieve those goals. We want to provide everything that they and their families will need to be successful and live stable,... Read More I think the best way we could honor the service of our fallen comrades is to ensure that no one EVER has to go off to war again and risk loss of life or limb. We, as the political base, need to ensure our voice is heard at every corner saying NO to war... Read More Blackfive and Mudville Gazette have their posts and roundups today. As a gesture of respect and gratitude to our American readers and team members, so we we.... Read More Tomb of the Unknowns Photo from US Memorial Day images (1993 Smithsonian Institute.) May 30 - Memorial Day was officially proclaimed in 1868 to honour those who died during the Civil War. After World War I it was changed... Read More Memorial Day By Edgar Guest The finest tribute we can pay Unto our hero dead today, Is not a rose wreath, white and red, In memory of the blood they shed; It is to stand beside each mound, Each... Read More Memorial Day. We take a moment to consider those who have sacrificed their lives, so we may have our freedoms. It is difficult, however, to grasp being without such things as the 1st Amendment of the Constitution, and so many other things we enjoy ev... Read More SATURDAY, my friend Wayne and I joined Da Goddess, Little Dude, and hundreds of boy and girl scouts for a Memorial Day event at Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery. Our mission: to place an American flag on every grave site in... Read More Great story here at the New Hampshire Sunday News: Soldier breaks a long silence...Readers and potential authors should pay close attention to the following paragraph: "I found it difficult to discuss combat experiences after I returned home —... Read More Monday the 30th is Memorial Day, set aside to honor the memories of fallen U.S. service men and women, from the Revolutionary War to the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Read More Today is a beautiful Memorial Day in Silver Spring, MD. I've missed out on the Hepzibah Triathlon for the first time in quite a while, and I missed watching the Indy 500. Those two things have been a good... Read More I watched the flag pass by one day.It fluttered in the breeze.A young Marine saluted it,And then he stood at ease.I looked at him in uniformSo young, so tall, so proud,He'd stand out in a crowd.I thought how many men like himhad fallen through the year... Read More Tomorrow is Memorial Day. At 3 pm, the nation will take one minute out of the year for a moment of silence to reflect on all the sacrifices made to preserve our freedoms. I think we should do this more often, but I hope you join me tomorrow at 3 pm, wh... Read More To the selfless act of soldiers serving our country... Read More It is, of course, Memorial Day. On this day, we honor those who have given all for duty, honor, and country, and we thank those who have and still are serving our country. Let's do something more. Please find an organization t... Read More These remberances are not complete without an acknowlegement that our businesses, barbeques, and parades are made possible by the sacrifice of past and present military personnel. Read More Today, Memorial Day, we honor those who fought and died for the United States of America, the land, the people, and the idea. We should strive each day to keep America, with our freedom of speech and religion, our... Read More From my experience I have observed that true warriors rarely, if ever, talk about their wars with non-warriors. Makes perfect sense, for how can we, who have never experienced the cold realities of mortal combat, have any ability to comprehend, underst... Read More On Memorial Day, read a blog like Mudville Gazette before you read a paper like the N&O, who can't even get the story right on this sacred day. Read More Memorial Day honors all men and women who have served our country...... Read More I pray your Memorial Day was a happy and healthy one. I also pray for our men and women who were unable to join us either because they are on duty risking their lives, shuffling paper (that is important, too), or they just happen to be with the Father.... Read More The Mudville Gazzette gives a few suggestions on how we that are fortunate enough to live in the nation that remains the last best hope for freedom may do things this weekend that bring us joy...Indeed, we honor their sacrifice by living well. Read More "And when this ceremony is concluded, and all of us have gone on our way, the Honor Guard will keep watch over the Tomb. Every hour of every day, on the coldest nights, in the hardest rain, there is a... Read More Reposted from May 31, 2004, on what I think about on Memorial Day: I'm taking the time to remember my father today. He fought in the Second World War as an infantryman. He was "just" one of the mudfaces. Like many veterans, he almost never talked about... Read More 13 Comments |
November 26, 2010America@war [Greyhawk]
I think anyone who's ever pondered the "comment" option - once only available on blogs and bulletin boards, now ubiquitous on almost any web site - will appreciate this:
The so-called faculty of writing is not so much a faculty of writing as it is a faculty of thinking. When a man says, "I have an idea but I can't express it"; that man hasn't an idea but merely a vague feeling. If a man has a feeling of that kind, and will sit down for a half an hour and persistently try to put into writing what he feels, the probabilities are at least 90 percent that he will either be able to record it, or else realize that he has no idea at all. In either case, he will do himself a benefit. That's wisdom from the past, captured for posterity at the US Naval Institute, shared via the web on the institute's 137th anniversary. From their about page:
"The Naval Institute has three core activities," among them, History and Preservation: The Naval Institute also has recently introduced Americans at War, a living history of Americans at war in their own words and from their own experiences. These 90-second vignettes convey powerful stories of inspiration, pride, and patriotism. Take a look at the collection, and you'll see it's not limited to accounts from those who served on ships at sea, members of the other branches are well-represented. I'm fortunate to have met USNI's Mary Ripley, she's responsible for the institute's oral history program (and she's the daughter of the late John Ripley, whose story is told here). She also deserves much credit for their blog. ("We're not the Navy nor any government agency. Blog and comment freely.") We met at a milblog conference - Mary knew (and I would come to realize) that milbloggers are the 21st-century version of exactly what the US Naval Institute is all about. Once that light bulb came on in my head, I mentioned a vague idea for a project to her - milblogs as the 21st century oral history that they are. "Put that in writing," she said (of course - see first paragraph above!) - and here's part of the result. Shortly after the first tent was pitched by the American military in Iraq a wire was connected to a computer therein, and the internet was available to a generation of Americans at war - many of whom had grown up online. From that point on, at any given moment, somewhere in Iraq a Soldier, Sailor, Airman or Marine was at a keyboard sharing the events of his or her day with the folks back home. While most would simply fire off an email, others took advantage of the (then) relatively new online blogging platforms to post their thoughts and experiences for the entire world to see. The milblog was born - and from that moment to this stories detailing everything from the most mundane aspects of camp life to intense combat action (often described within hours of the event) have been available on the web... And et cetera - but since you're reading this on a milblog, you probably knew that. And you know that milblogs aren't just blogs written by troops at war, that many friends, family members, and supporters likewise documented their story of America at war online in near-real time, as those stories developed. The diversity in membership of that group is broad, the one thing we all have in common is the impulse to make sense of the seemingly senseless, and communicate the tale - for each of us that impulse was strong enough to overcome whatever barriers prevent the vast majority of people from doing the same. Everyone at some point has some vague idea they believe should be shared - we were the people who, from some combination of internal and external urging, found and spent those many half hours persistently trying to write it down. But where will all that be in another 137 years? Or five or ten, for that matter. That's something I've asked myself since at least 2004 - when I wrote this:
Membership in the ghost battalion has grown in the years since, and an ever growing majority of those abandoned-but-still-standing sites are vanishing. Have you checked out Lt Smash's site lately? How about Sgt Hook's? If you're a long-time milblog reader you know the first widely-read milblog from Operation Iraq Freedom and the first widely-read milblog from Afghanistan are both gone from the web. If you're a relative newcomer to this world you may never even have heard of them - or the dozens upon dozens of others who carried forth the standard they set down. If you have a vague notion that something should be done about that, (a notion I've heard expressed more than once...) then you and I and the good folks at the US Naval Institute are in agreement. Preserving the history documented by the milbloggers is just one of the goals of the milblog project, the once-vague idea that we're now making real. And it's a big idea, if I say so myself - too big to explain in one simple blog post, so stand by for more. Likewise, it's too big a task to be accomplished by just one person. So if you're a milblogger (and exactly what is a milblogger? is a topic for much further discussion on its own) I'm asking for your help. All I'll really need is just a little bit (maybe just one or two of those half hours...) of your time, and your willingness to tell the tale. We've already made history, it's time to save it. (More to follow...) Posted 4:02 PM | Permalink |
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The Mudville Gazette is the on-line voice of an American warrior and his wife who stands by him. They prefer to see peaceful change render force of arms unnecessary. Until that day they stand fast with those who struggle for freedom, strike for reason, and pray for a better tomorrow.
 
 
 Furthermore, I will occasionally use satire or parody herein. The bottom line: it's my house. I like having visitors to my house. I hope you are entertained. I fight for your right to free speech, and am thrilled when you exercise said rights here. Comments and e-mails are welcome, but all such communication is to be assumed to be 1)the original work of any who initiate said communication and 2)the property of the Mudville Gazette, with free use granted thereto for publication in electronic or written form. If you do NOT wish to have your message posted, write "CONFIDENTIAL" in the subject line of your email. Original content copyright © 2003 - 2011 by Greyhawk. Fair, not-for-profit use of said material by others is encouraged, as long as acknowledgement and credit is given, to include the url of the original source post. Other arrangements can be made as needed. Contact: greyhawk at mudvillegazette dot com  Tending Distant Far from hearth and home, watching What tales we'll tell When things grim Some distant sunset, vision fading Saluting fallen friends whose names - Greyhawk, Baghdad, December 2004 |
My thanks to all for your service as I recall past and current military who have and are protecting our nation.
A life is not wasted unless it is forgotten. This is our day to remember those who have fallen before us in service to the greatest nation on Earth. For our brothers and sisters fighting the good and noble fight today:
"If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace."
Thomas Paine
God bless our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines. God bless those who have served in uniform, both living and dead.
thank you to all those who have served this great country. you have allowed me to sleep in peace at nite, live the life i do, and enjoy the company of family and friends on this fine memorial day weekend.
God bless.
My blog has been replaced for Memorial day with a simple memorial, thus my inability to trackback and why I am posting it here:
goldfalcon.org
Sorry for the double post, typo'd the URL
Good Link
"You honor their sacrifice by living well." Oh, great, so I don't have to actually take part in any ceremonies over even THINK about war and sacrifices they made? I can just chomp down some meat, swill some beers and pass out on the sofa and be honoring them the whole them? Sweeeeeet
Great post. Can I recommend someone else's blog? I never met this guy but Daisy Cutter
had me in tears
Dear Greyhawks,
We just wanted to let your family know that we are praing for your family and all the soldiers and their families that took an oath to protect our Country and it's Republic from enemies both here and abroad.
As long as the world spins and good is being defended, we want to make sure that the choices we make stands up to the test of time.
Your blog is documenting these choices and we greatly appreciate it.
God Bless,
The Cathcarts
Thank you for serving and thank you for remembering our fallen bretheren. God Bless you too.
Dear Greyhawk,
Thank you. I often ponder what more can I do? I believe you have answered this.
I want to just run around and scream sometimes, "We are at war, people. Come together!" Realizing this will do nothing, I feel angry sometimes. Sometimes I feel afraid. I think they have forgotten. I never can.
You are right. What we (you) are doing is right and just. I am so grateful for your service to our country and our lives. I salute YOU on this day. May God bless your family and you.
Nearly two hundred years ago, Francis Scott Key asked us a question:
"O, say, does that Star-Spangled Banner yet wave o'er the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave?"
America's veterans have answered Mr. Keys in the affirmative, sometimes with their bodies and even their very lives.
We thank them for their answer.
And let 'er fly, boys!
For all our troops:
Iraq & America the Beautiful
What a great weekend we had. Nice not having that empty place setting on Memorial Day for a change!
God Speed Hawk and Mrs. G. Thank you both for everything you do! Y'all are a Godsend!!