today is veteran's day. it was formed i recognition of the end of world war I. so, maybe you should just think for a second about what your country means to you. politics aside, this day is about america's war fighters. i don't mean this to be like a myspace chain bulletin. i just didn't see a thread about it, and i'd like to make sure you all knew that it was today. so maybe just pay a little recognition to the armed servicemen/women who've sacrificed a lot not only for their personal gain, but for the country in which most of us reside.
o7 (salute) If it wasn't for our military, we wouldn't have the Freedoms we have now. Thank you, those in the armed forces, for keeping america great.
HAND... SALUTE! O7 || /\ I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands: one Nation under God, indivisible, With Liberty and Justice for all. "...and those who have gone before me to defend freedom and democracy around the world."
I had to march in a parade today and carry the Coast Guard flag. I wasn't enthusiastic because I'm not much of a get up in front of people and do things kind of person. Someone bought me breakfast, lunch was free for military people, I got all kinds of free drinks. I changed out after my bravos began choking the shit out of me.
Hans, have you watched the youtube episodes "Hey, Shipwreck"? Entertaining stuff from one of yer ET buddies.
That was from a Navy ET, though. Not one of them pansy Coasties! J/K That series is hilarious. A buddy of mine knows the writer of 'em. ~Will Courtier~
Salute to all who serve. No salute to all the non-vet state employees who turned this commemorative day into a 5-day weekend. Take the 5 min to read this - It is important I wonder why we do not hear stuff like this from those whose pledge it is to bring us the truth in news? Good stuff!! Dan Parsons "Being happy doesn't mean everything's perfect. It means you've decided to see beyond the imperfections." SOME OF YOU ARE NOT OLD ENOUGH TO REMEMBER THAT NEARLY EVERY FAMILY IN AMERICA WAS GROSSLY AFFECTED BY WW II. MOST OF YOU DON'T REMEMBER THE RATIONING OF MEAT, SHOES, GASOLINE, AND SUGAR. NO TIRES FOR OUR AUTOMOBILES, AND A SPEED LIMIT OF 35 MILES AN HOUR ON THE ROAD, NOT TO MENTION, NO NEW AUTOMOBILES. READ THIS AND THINK ABOUT HOW WE WOULD REACT TO BEING TAKEN OVER BY FOREIGNERS IN 2007. This is an EXCELLENT essay. Well thought out and presented. Historical Significance Sixty-three years ago, Nazi Germany had overrun almost all of Europe and hammered England to the verge of bankruptcy and defeat. The Nazis had sunk more than 400 British ships in their convoys between England and America taking food and war materials. At that time the US was in an isolationist, pacifist mood, and most Americans wanted nothing to do with the European or the Asian war. Then along came Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and in outrage Congress unanimously declared war on Japan, and the following day on Germany, who had not yet attacked us. It was a dicey thing. We had few allies. France was not an ally, as the Vichy government of France quickly aligned itself with its German occupiers. Germany was certainly not an ally, as Hitler was intent on setting up a Thousand Year Reich in Europe. Japan was not an ally, as it was well on its way to owning and controlling all of Asia. Together, Japan and Germany had long-range plans of invading Canada and Mexico, as launching pads to get into the United States over our northern and southern borders, after they finished gaining control of Asia and Europe. America's only allies then were England, Ireland, Scotland, Canada, Australia, and Russia. That was about it All of Europe, from Norway to Italy (except Russia in the East) was already under the Nazi heel. The US was certainly not prepared for war. The US had drastically downgraded most of its military forces after WW I because of the depression, so that at the outbreak of WW II, Army units were training with broomsticks because they didn't have guns, and cars with 'tank' painted on the doors because they didn't have real tanks. A huge chunk of our Navy had just been sunk or damaged at Pearl Harbor. Britain had already gone bankrupt, saved only by the donation of $600 million in gold bullion in the Bank of England (that was actually the property of Belgium) given by Belgium to England to carry on the war when Belgium was overrun by Hitler (a little known fact). Actually, Belgium surrendered on one day, because it was unable to oppose the German invasion, and the Germans bombed Brussels into rubble the next day just to prove they could. Britain had already been holding out for two years in the face of staggering losses and the near decimation of its Royal Air Force in the Battle of Britain, and was saved from being overrun by Germany only because Hitler made the mistake of thinking the Brits were a relatively minor threat that could be dealt with later. Hitler, first turned his attention to Russia, in the late summer of 1940 at a time when England was on the verge of collapse. Ironically, Russia saved America's butt by putting up a desperate fight for two years, until the US got geared up to begin hammering away at Germany . Russia lost something like 24,000,000 people in the sieges of Stalingrad and Moscow alone... 90% of them from cold and starvation, mostly civilians, but also more than a 1,000,000 soldiers. Had Russia surrendered, Hitler would have been able to focus his entire war effort against the Brits, then America. If that had happened, the Nazis could possibly have won the war. All of this has been brought out to illustrate that turning points in history are often dicey things. Now, we find ourselves at another one of those key moments in history. There is a very dangerous minority in Islam that either has, or wants, and may soon have, the ability to deliver small nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons, almost anywhere in the world. The Jihadists, the militant Muslims, are basically Nazis in Kaffiyahs -- they believe that Islam, a radically conservative form of Wahhabi Islam, should own and control the Middle East first, then Europe, then the world. To them, all who do not bow to their will, and their way of thinking, should be killed, enslaved, or subjugated. They want to finish the Holocaust, destroy Israel, and purge the world of Jews. This is their mantra (goal). There is also a civil war raging in the Middle East -- for the most part not a hot war, but a war of ideas. Islam is having its Inquisition and its Reformation, but it is not yet known which side will win -- the Inquisitors, or the Reformationists. If the Inquisition wins, then the Wahhabis, the Jihadists, will control the Middle East, the OPEC oil, and the US, European, and Asian economies. The techno-industrial economies will be at the mercy of OPEC -- not an OPEC dominated by the educated, rational Saudis of today, but an OPEC dominated by the Jihadists. Do you want gas in your car? Do you want heating oil next winter? Do you want the dollar to be worth anything? You had better hope the Jihad, the Muslim Inquisition, loses, and the Islamic Reformation wins. If the Reformation movement wins, that is, the moderate Muslims who believe that Islam can respect and tolerate other religions, live in peace with the rest of the world, and move out of the 10th century into the 21st, then the troubles in the Middle East will eventually fade away. A moderate and prosperous Middle East will emerge. We have to help the Reformation win, and to do that we have to fight the Inquisition, i.e., the Wahhabi movement, the Jihad, Al Qaeda and the Islamic terrorist movements. We have to do it somewhere. We can't do it everywhere at once. We have created a focal point for the battle at a time and place of our choosing . . . in Iraq. Not in New York, not in London, or Paris or Berlin, but in Iraq, where we are doing two important things. (1) We deposed Saddam Hussein. Whether Saddam Hussein was directly involved in the 9/11 terrorist attack or not, it is undisputed that Saddam had been actively supporting the terrorist movement for decades Saddam was a terrorist! Saddam is, or was, a weapon of mass destruction, responsible for the deaths of probably more than a 1,000,000 Iraqis and 2,000,000 Iranians. (2) We created a battle, a confrontation, a flash point, with Islamic terrorism in Iraq. We have focused the battle. We are killing bad people, and the ones we get there we won't have to get here. We also have a good shot at creating a democratic, peaceful Iraq, which will be a catalyst for democratic change in the rest of the Middle East, and an outpost for a stabilizing American military presence in the Middle East for as long as it is needed. WW II, the war with the Japanese and German Nazis, really began with a 'whimper' in 1928. It did not begin with Pearl Harbor. It began with the Japanese invasion of China. It was a war for fourteen years before the US joined it. It officially ended in 1945 -- a 17 year war -- and was followed by another decade of US occupation in Germany and Japan to get those countries reconstructed and running on their own a gain... a 27 year war. WW II cost the United States an amount equal to approximately a full year's GDP -- adjusted for inflation, equal to about $12 trillion dollars. WW II cost America more than 400,000 soldiers killed in action and nearly 100,000 still missing in action. The Iraq war has, so far, cost the United States about 160 billion dollars, which is roughly what the 9/11 terrorist attack cost New York. It has also cost about 3,000 American lives, which is roughly equivalent to lives that the Jihad killed (within the United States) in the 9/11 terrorist attack The cost of not fighting and winning WW II would have been unimaginably greater -- a world dominated by Japanese Imperialism and German Nazism This is not a 60-Minutes TV show, or a 2-hour movie in which everything comes out okay. The real world is not like that. It is messy, uncertain, and sometimes bloody and ugly. It always has been, and probably always will be. The bottom line is that we will have to deal with Islamic terrorism until we defeat it, whenever that is. It will not go away if we ignore it. If the US can create a reasonably democratic and stable Iraq, then we have an ally, like England, in the Middle East, a platform, from which we can work to help modernize and moderate the Middle East. The history of the world is the clash between the forces of relative civility and civilization, and the barbarians clamoring at the gates to conquer the world. The Iraq War is merely another battle in this ancient and never ending war. Now, for the first time ever, the barbarians are about to get nuclear weapons ... unless somebody prevents them from getting them. We have four options: 1. We can defeat the Jihad now, before it gets nuclear weapons. 2. We can fight the Jihad later, after it gets nuclear weapons (which may be as early as next year, if Iran's progress on nuclear weapons is what Iran claims it is). 3. We can surrender to the Jihad and accept its dominance in the Middle East now; in Europe in the next few years or decades, and ultimately in America. OR 4. We can stand down now, and pick-up the fight later when the Jihad is more widespread and better armed, perhaps after the Jihad has dominated France and Germany and possibly most of the rest of Europe. It will, of course, be more dangerous, more expensive, and much bloodier. If you oppose this war, I hope you like the idea that your children, or grandchildren, may live in an Islamic America under the Mullahs and the Sharia, an America that resembles Iran today. The history of the world is the history of civilization clashes, cultural clashes. All wars are about ideas, ideas about what society and civilization should be like, and the most determined always win. Those who are the most fearless, the most determined, and, yes, prepared to be the most ruthless if necessary, always win. The pacifists always lose, because the anti-pacifists kill them. Remember, perspective is everything, and America's schools teach too little history for perspective to be clear, especially in the young American mind. The Cold War lasted from about 1947, until at least the time the Berlin Wall came down in 1989; forty-two years! Europe spent the first half of the 19th century fighting Napoleon, and from 1870 to 1945 fighting Germany! World War II began in 1928, lasted 17 years, plus a ten year occupation, and the US still has troops in Germany and Japan. World War II resulted in the death of more than 50,000,000 people, maybe more than 100,000,000 people, depending on which estimates you accept. The US has had more than 3,000 of its military killed in action in Iraq. The US took more than 4,000 killed in action on the morning of June 6, 1944, the first day of the Normandy Invasion to rid Europe of Nazi Imperialism. In WW II the US averaged 2,000 KIA a week -- for four years. Most of the individual battles of WW II lost many more Americans than the entire Iraq war has done so far. The stakes are at least as high... A world dominated by representative governments with civil rights, human rights, and personal freedoms... or a world dominated by a radical Islamic Wahhabi movement, by the Jihad, under the Mullahs and the Sharia (Islamic law). It's difficult to understand why the average American does not grasp this. They favor human rights, civil rights, liberty and freedom, but evidently not for Iraqis. 'Peace Activists' always seem to demonstrate here in America, where it's safe. Why don't we see Peace Activist demonstrating in Iran, Syria, Iraq, Sudan, North Korea, in the places that really need peace activism the most? I'll tell you why! They would be killed! The liberal mentality is supposed to favor human rights, civil rights, democracy, multiculturalism, diversity, etc., but if the Jihad wins, wherever the Jihad wins, it is the end of civil rights, human rights, democracy, multiculturalism, diversity, etc. Americans who oppose the liberation of Iraq are coming down on the side of their own worst enemy! By being denied the facts of our history, the young are at a decided disadvantage when it comes to reasoning and thinking through the issues of today. They are prime targets for misinformation campaigns beamed at enlisting them in causes and beliefs that are special interest agenda driven. Raymond S. Kraft is a writer living in Northern California who has long been a student of Middle Eastern culture and religion.
Yeah, im not sure of that number... But I did just find this: According to the National Survey of Homeless Assistance Providers and Clients (U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness and the Urban Institute, 1999), veterans account for 23% of all homeless people in America.
That's a shamefull commentary for this nation. It certainly belies the claim that our war machine insures our freedom. If that were true, all of our vets would be better taken care of than they are being treated....shamefull, absolutely shamefull! Yet we can and do pay for illegal immigrants to have their offspring here.....and food stamps...and health care.....and.... Fucking shamefull!
Today they were getting ready to hand out the flags we were going to carry and one guy said to me you'll be carrying the Navy flag. All most instantaneously I said "No I won't."
I completely agree with you in the fact that those who serve our country (as well as those who are veterans) are not taken care of. That is a horrible shame. I know that my grandfather (who has since died) had to fight to get any kind of health care after he served in WWII. I know that my other grandfather has to wait in lines for hours to get his weekly prescriptions filled. It is absolutely depressing. I quite honestly agree with the article that Wiskas posted. I feel that our military does ensure our freedom, but that it is done at the cost of many lives. Many people do not understand exactly what is happening over in Iraq. I just spoke with a man who was over there for the last year and a half. He was responsible for talking directly with the civilians, and gaining intelligence on the terrorist sects, and where armorments and bases were located. He learned that many of the people in that country were just serving as terrorists so that they could feed their families. He said that most of the people were human, and didn't do it for religion such as has been stated by many news agencies. They did it to take care of their own. They did whatever it took to take care of their kids, in a place that is nearly unbearable to live. His exact quote on the war on terror was that it is fueled by poverty. As long as we have poverty, we will have terrorism. Our country does not (and has never had) the means to end poverty for others. But, we can at least act at scaring the terroristic agencies so they do not attack us. In the process, we have gained the respect and support of the Iraqi people, giving us an even better stronghold against terrorism. This war isn't all in vein, I'm afraid to tell everyone here.... ~Will Courtier~
