While it's easy to forget the reason for Memorial Day in the haze of BBQ smoke, the happy splashing of kids in a pool and fun on the archery range, we all need to take a moment tomorrow and raise a glass not only for the fallen, but to all that have served. To them, we say THANK YOU!

       

In keeping with Memorial Day, while doing volunteer work at the Lexington VA last week, I met a WWII vet from the 88th Infantry Division. He told me that he participated in THREE amphibious landings in the Mediterranean. He was there waiting for his buddy who was in the D Day assault. His friend's LST, carrying 30 men, took a direct hit from an artillery shell killing all but two. How would you like to be carrying that around for the rest of your life? These ordinary guys did extraordinary things.

Hail to the fallen!  It is sad that before too long there won't be anymore living WWII vets.  These guys had the right stuff.  Sad that the current and future generations will have little to no concept of what a "righteous war" is.  Now all it involves is corporate greed and nation building.  Hail the Einherjar may they enter the Halls of Valhalla.

Humbly agree .          

My marine buddy took a head shot on the top of his head in Viet Nam. Paralyzed him on his entire right side.  The med team gave him "maybe" 15 years to live.  That was on 9/11/66.  We spoke just the other day.  He is one tough SOB.

I had the pleasure of spending the last 54 years with a Man you just described nineworlds9.  He was my father and he passed away February 20th at the age of 89.  He served in the South Pacific during WW2.  When I was a little kid I remember my Dad placing the American flags on the Veterans graves on Memorial Day weekend for the American Legion which he did until just a few years ago.  Tomorrow I will pick up my Mother for Memorial Day Services and go to the cemetery to  honor him and all veterans.. God Bless you all.

I had the pleasure of spending the last 54 years with a Man you just described nineworlds9.  He was my father and he passed away February 20th at the age of 89.  He served in the South Pacific during WW2.  When I was a little kid I remember my Dad placing the American flags on the Veterans graves on Memorial Day weekend for the American Legion which he did until just a few years ago.  Tomorrow I will pick up my Mother for Memorial Day Services and go to the cemetery to  honor him and all veterans.. God Bless you all.

   

To all those families out there that lost sons or daughters, or husbands,wives,brothers,sisters or just someone they loved because they gave themselves in service to us and our country... I say..Thank you! and God bless each and every one of you!

One of my best friends in Greenville passed away a few years ago. He was a WWII P-38 Lightning pilot, shot down by ground fire over France. He was taken in by a French family after spending a couple of days in a swamp with a broken ankle and collar bone. He lived for many years with a heavy load of guilt.

The French family hooked him up with a resistance group who tried to smuggle him to a port where he could hitch a ride back to Allied territory. They were caught by a German patrol and the resistance fighter killed. Bob went to a POW camp and was afraid that he had revealed under interrogation the name of the family that took him in and that they were probably all killed.

Shortly before Bob's death the Greenville mayor received a letter from a French family trying to get in touch with the brave fighter pilot they had sheltered during the war. Bob found out he had not revealed the name of the family and they all survived the war.

Bob was not an archer, but was a heck of a shot with a rifle and handgun and at 80 years of age, shot one of the little Airweight Scandium snubbies with .357 Mag 158gr Federal Hydroshocks.

He definitely had a fighter pilot mentality until the day he died and I was proud to have him as a friend. I shoot the Cooper .22LR he gave me at our 100 yd egg shoots and it can hold its own against any of the heavy barreled target .22s.

Thanks again Bob!

God bless all of our vets.

Me and five friends completed a workout called a "Murph" this morning to honor not only Lt Michael Murphy but all who have paid the ultimate price for our freedom.  It was an honor.

To my mothers father...KIA in the black sands of Iwo Jima, March 17, 1945, twelve years before I was born. Rest in peace, sir. He is not forgotten though I never knew him.

The numbnuts at the V.A. should all be working today to get that 'system' fixed and our fellow countrymen and women the help that they need and so rightly deserve.

My father survived 45 combat missions piloting a B24 Liberator Heavy Bomber against the Japanese across the Pacific during WWII. He died in 1984. Though I am aware of the reason for today's Holiday, I still always think of him. He was as self-reliant and confident and as thoroughly good a man as I have ever known and Tom Brokaw's book title "The Greatest Generation" described him and so many others of his day perfectly. Today I think as well about how much all of us have been cheated by the deaths of those whose memory we honor . All their talents, abilities, dedication, honor and potential were gone and un-fulfilled  with their passing. We are a poorer nation for it.

US Casualties Since 1775 to present approx:

1,321,612  - Killed

1,531,036  - Wounded

38,159   - Missing

40,000,000 - Served

Thank You To All

Christ Jesus said..."greater love hath no man than to lay down his life for his friends"
To all who have fallen in battle and gave the ultimate sacrifice....THANK YOU

My dad Ted, spent 3 years in Europe during WWII. He had told myself and four brothers and four sisters his experiences during the war.
I wish that I had recorded those experiences  that he had and hand down to my kids, but I did not.
I am very proud to have relatives that have served to protect our country.

Yes!  Thank you to all who have served and paid the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom. I can think of no better way to thank them than to enter the deer woods and provide meat for my family.  For this, I will be eternally grateful.