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talkpolitics
Mary McHugh mourns her fiancé, Sgt. James Regan, at Section 60 in Arlington National Cemetary. Sgt. Regan, an Army Ranger, was killed when his patrol vehicle was blown up by a bomb in Baghdad.
Normandy
Soldiers of the 16th Infantry Regiment, wounded while storming Omaha Beach, wait by the chalk cliffs for evacuation to a field hospital for treatment, D-Day, June 6, 1944.
Korea
A grief stricken American infantryman whose buddy has been killed in action is comforted by another soldier. In the background a corpsman methodically fills out casualty tags, Haktong-ni area, Korea. August 28, 1950. Sfc. Al Chang.
Vietnam
Left: In this June 17, 1967 file photo, medic James E. Callahan of Pittsfield, Mass., treats a U.S. infantryman who suffered a head wound when a Viet Cong bullet pierced his helmet during a three-hour battle in war zone D, about 50 miles northeast of Saigon. Right: In this January 1966 file photo, First Cavalry Division medic Thomas Cole, from Richmond, Va., looks up with one uncovered eye as he treats a wounded Staff Sgt. Harrison Pell during a firefight in the Central Highlands in Vietnam, between U.S. troops and a combined North Vietnamese and Vietcong forces. AP| Henri Huet
Iraq
Marine Staff Sgt. John Jones. SSgt John P. Jones was serving in Iraq with the 1st Battalion/ 7th Marines when he was severely injured on January 3, 2005. John was in the 7th vehicle of a 35-vehicle convoy when it hit a double-stacked anti-tank mine. The mine that exploded under his hummer launched him 25 feet through the top of the vehicle.
Afganistan
Cpl. Pat Tillman, left, and his brother Kevin. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Tillman left a lucrative career as an NFL football player to enlist in the U.S. Army. Tillman was killed in action on April 22, 2004 near Sperah, Afghanistan.
(no subject)
Date: 12/11/10 02:26 (UTC)In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
Rest is at the link.
(no subject)
Date: 12/11/10 03:27 (UTC)tell them our fathers lied".
http://www.web-books.com/Classics/Poetry/Anthology/Kipling/Epitaphs.htm
(no subject)
Date: 12/11/10 04:20 (UTC)And the front rank died.
And the general sat and the lines on the map
Moved from side to side. -PF (http://www.lyricsfreak.com/p/pink+floyd/us+them_20108709.html)
(no subject)
Date: 12/11/10 14:21 (UTC)We stood in the doorway watching horses
Walk off lazily across the pasture’s hill.
We stared through the black screen,
Our vision altered by the distance
So I thought I saw a mist
Kicked up around their hooves when they faded
Like cut-out horses
Away from us.
The grass was never more blue in that light, more
Scarlet; beyond the pasture
Trees scraped their voices into the wind, branches
Crisscrossed the sky like barbed wire
But you said they were only branches.
Okay. The storm stopped pounding.
I am trying to say this straight: for once
I was sane enough to pause and breathe
Outside my wild plans and after the hard rain
I turned my back on the old curses. I believed
They swung finally away from me ...
But still the branches are wire
And thunder is the pounding mortar,
Still I close my eyes and see the girl
Running from her village, napalm
Stuck to her dress like jelly,
Her hands reaching for the no one
Who waits in waves of heat before her.
So I can keep on living,
So I can stay here beside you,
I try to imagine she runs down the road and wings
Beat inside her until she rises
Above the stinking jungle and her pain
Eases, and your pain, and mine.
But the lie swings back again.
The lie works only as long as it takes to speak
And the girl runs only as far
As the napalm allows
Until her burning tendons and crackling
Muscles draw her up
into that final position
Burning bodies so perfectly assume. Nothing
Can change that; she is burned behind my eyes
And not your good love and not the rain-swept air
And not the jungle green
Pasture unfolding before us can deny it. (http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=171470)"
Green fields
Date: 12/11/10 20:14 (UTC)Do you mind if I sit down here by your graveside?
And rest for awhile in the warm summer sun,
I've been walking all day, and I'm nearly done.
And I see by your gravestone you were only 19
When you joined the glorious fallen in 1916,
Well, I hope you died quick and I hope you died clean
Or, Willie McBride, was it slow and obscene?
Did they Beat the drum slowly, did the play the pipes lowly?
Did the rifles fir o'er you as they lowered you down?
Did the bugles sound The Last Post in chorus?
Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest?
And did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind
In some loyal heart is your memory enshrined?
And, though you died back in 1916,
To that loyal heart are you forever 19?
Or are you a stranger without even a name,
Forever enshrined behind some glass pane,
In an old photograph, torn and tattered and stained,
And fading to yellow in a brown leather frame?
The sun's shining down on these green fields of France;
The warm wind blows gently, and the red poppies dance.
The trenches have vanished long under the plow;
No gas and no barbed wire, no guns firing now.
But here in this graveyard that's still No Man's Land
The countless white crosses in mute witness stand
To man's blind indifference to his fellow man.
And a whole generation who were butchered and damned.
And I can't help but wonder, no Willie McBride,
Do all those who lie here know why they died?
Did you really believe them when they told you "The Cause?"
Did you really believe that this war would end wars?
Well the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame
The killing, the dying, it was all done in vain,
For Willie McBride, it all happened again,
Again, and again, and again, and again.
Anthem for Doomed Youth
Date: 14/11/10 09:22 (UTC)Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells,
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,-
The shrill demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.
Re: Green fields
Date: 15/11/10 01:10 (UTC)Oh, me and my cousin, one Arthur McBride,
As we went a-walkin' down by the seaside,
Mark now what followed and what did betide,
For it bein' on Christmas mornin'
Now, for recreation, we went on a tramp,
And we met Sergeant Napper and Corporal Vamp
And a little wee drummer intending to camp,
For the day bein' pleasant and charmin'.
"Good morning, good morning," the Sergeant he cried.
"And the same to you, gentlemen," we did reply,
Intending no harm but meant to pass by,
For it bein' on Christmas mornin'
"But," says he, "My fine fellows, if you will enlist,
Ten guineas in gold I'll stick to your fist,
And a crown in the bargain for to kick up the dust,
And drink the king's health in the morning.
"For a soldier, he leads a very fine life,
And he always is blessed with a charming young wife,
And he pays all his debts without sorrow or strife,
And he always lives pleasant and charmin',
And a soldier, he always is decent and clean,
In the finest of clothing he's constantly seen.
While other poor fellows go dirty and mean,
And sup on thin gruel in the morning."
"But," says Arthur, "I wouldn't be proud of your clothes,
For you've only the lend of them, as I suppose,
But you dare not change them one night, for you know
If you do, you'll be flogged in the morning,
And although that we're single and free,
We take great delight in our own company,
We have no desire strange places to see,
Although that your offers are charming.
"And we have no desire to take your advance,
All hazards and dangers we barter on chance,
For you'd have no scruples for to send us to France,
Where we would get shot without warning,"
"Oh no," says the Sergeant. "I'll have no such chat,
And neither will I take it from snappy young brats,
For if you insult me with one other word,
I'll cut off your heads in the morning."
And Arthur and I, we soon drew our hogs,
And we scarce gave them time to draw their own blades
When a trusty shillelagh came over their head
And bid them take that as fair warning.
And their old rusty rapiers that hung by their sides,
We flung them as far as we could in the tide,
"Now take them up, devils!" cried Arthur McBride,
"And temper their edge in the mornin'!"
And the little wee drummer, we flattened his bow,
And we made a football of his rowdy-dow-dow,
Threw it in the tide for to rock and to roll,
And bade it a tedious returning,
And we havin' no money, paid them off in cracks.
We paid no respect to their two bloody backs,
And we lathered them there like a pair of wet sacks,
And left them for dead in the morning.
And so, to conclude and to finish disputes,
We obligingly asked if they wanted recruits,
For we were the lads who would give them hard clouts
And bid them look sharp in the mornin'.
Oh, me and my cousin, one Arthur McBride,
As we went a-walkin' down by the seaside,
Mark now what followed and what did betide,
For it bein' on Christmas mornin'
Copyright ©1992 Special Rider Music (http://www.bobdylan.com/#/songs/arthur-mcbride)
(no subject)
Date: 12/11/10 14:30 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 12/11/10 03:28 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 12/11/10 04:50 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 12/11/10 14:28 (UTC)That means that he was killed by his "countrymen" (or allies) in an attack in which the US military meant to kill bystanders.
(no subject)
Date: 12/11/10 19:42 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 12/11/10 20:14 (UTC)http://www.truth-out.org/second-soldier-alleges-former-tillman-commander-ordered-360-rotational-fire-iraq63153 (http://www.truth-out.org/second-soldier-alleges-former-tillman-commander-ordered-360-rotational-fire-iraq63153)
(no subject)
Date: 12/11/10 23:06 (UTC)Also, just because he was ordered by his commanding officer to do something wrong (Corporals don't get to overrule officers) doesn't mean his death was a good thing. He was still a human being and an American and his family mourned just as much as anyone's. Opposing the war doesn't mean celebrating the deaths of American soliders (regardless of how they died and who killed them).
Besides, since he did eventually die in a friendly fire incident and his death was covered up by the Pentagon that makes him every bit as much of a victim of this war as any other person. He didn't ask to be put in that situation.
(no subject)
Date: 12/11/10 17:54 (UTC)I love & miss you Grandpa ~ for a man is never truly gone until he is forgotten ♥
(no subject)
Date: 12/11/10 19:27 (UTC)Sad, beautiful photograph.
Yesterday, I thought of my friend Kyle and my cousin Chaz, who are both in Afghanistan right now. I thought of my uncle, who's done tours in Iraq for Operation Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom; my grandfather, a Vietnam vet; my aunt, who served in the Air Force; Sgt. 1st Class Raymond Buchan, whose funeral I attended as part of the Patriot Guard in 2007; and Cpl. Jason Dunham, who sacrificed his life for his fellow soldiers and lived not too far from where I live. And of course, all the men and women serving here and abroad and the people we've lost.
(no subject)
Date: 12/11/10 19:58 (UTC)The day to remember...
Date: 13/11/10 23:55 (UTC)The issue of the name change from Armistice Day to Veterans Day came up at work. A colleague reminded me that many calendars did not pick up on the name change until long after the official change. Armistice Day was a celebration of peace. Changing the name to Veterans Day makes it more of a war celebration. I guess that suits America better.
As for whether veterans serve their country, rather than serving the people who own their country, is probably a topic for another day.
Luang Prabang
Date: 14/11/10 00:07 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 14/11/10 09:24 (UTC)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
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.