This picture says it all

Yup, it sure does Chris!

Hi,

It really puzzles me why some people can make the effort to attend parades and memorials but cannot make the small jesture of standing in respect.

Surely they must have noticed that a man, in a wheelchair, was making the effort of standing in respect, which, not knowing why he is in the wheelchair, may have been of great discomfort to him, yet they still sit.

I cannot understand why these people are not showing respect to those fallen and / or injured, whether it be in combat or during civil duty.

Without these parades and memorials those fallen and what they fell for will be forgotten.

Stand up! Show your respect!

Pvt Puddles

The other thing that gets to me is how we need an announcer to remind everyone to stand and remove their hats for the National anthem

Sent to me by James Hennessey:

For this grand and beautiful Memorial Day ...

by Gary Jacobson © today

Blessed be my gallant brothers of the sword

Who fought in valiant courage with one accord

Displaying utmost honorable bravery

Sowing seeds to peoples of the earth of democracy

Reap now from our hearts your harvest of richest reward

On this Memorial Day receive your nation's grateful award.

O, brave soldier, who fought for me

Who kept me royally free ...

America still crowned with diadems of liberty

With honored glory still commendatory because of thee...

What has been your destiny?

What has been made of your gallant history?

What kind of future has your glorious action brought

What have you of life wrought?

What has been your life's story?

For your service, be ye ever proud of the memory!

Receive now our heartfelt thanks benedictory.

Here now is your grand and noble legacy?

===============================

A Soldier's LEGACY

by Gary Jacobson © 1999

http://namtour.com/warrior.html

Life’s experience is a soldier's legacy

But not of lands or gold consistency.

In my time I have seen both birth and death,

Poverty and wealth,

Honesty and dishonesty,

Good and bad philosophy,

The pure heart of charity,

The face of greed,

And the divine seed.

I’ve heard blatant blasphemy,

Avowed spirituality.

I’ve been lost,

Forsaken

Alone.

I’ve needed saving grace to atone.

I’ve seen evil selfishness,

Blatant pettiness,

Purest love.

I’ve felt great joy from above,

Unexcelled happiness,

Deep despair and sadness

I have looked into the face of the grim reaper,

Borne witness to the circle of life keeper.

Like our forefathers, may our children learn,

To walk softly, but carry a big stick.

I offer the wisdom this lesson will return

To know when to walk with softness,

Or the big stick to pick...

To give to despots a swift kick.

For all things there is a time and season.

Living and loving in peaceful harmony with reason

For I have flown with the hawk,

Considered with the dove,

Pondered at length the Master’s love.

I've pondered that Divine legacy

Of great moral integrity,

Bequeathing a fundamental honesty,

Handing down fulfilling spirituality,

Simple bravery.

This soldier's legacy is always to yourself be true.

For valued dependability must life imbue,

Instilling grand courage,

That of the world's wrong's take umbrage,

Showing patient, loving kindness,

Shored with timbers of complete trustworthiness.

I want my children in this life to be,

Fitting reflections Dear God of thee,

Goodly lives honoring,

In harmony living with loving,

Knowing right from wrong,

With joy singing,

A heavenly

Song...

In all you do exude love,

For family, friends, neighbors,

God!

Yourself...

Adhere to that Iron rod,

With love greater than wealth.

For a person can’t fully others love,

Until Themselves...

They first truly learn to love.

There will come a time

In this world’s rotating rhyme,

When valiant peace cannot intercede,

Cannot undo Great greed's unholy need,

The blooming Armageddon seed

Planted by wicked winds of war indeed.

The past cannot so soon be undone,

For a plethora of heritage’s exist under the sun.

Brave men and true must take a stand,

Draw a finite line in the sand,

Justice for all to demand.

Over that line the oppressing foe

Must never ever go...

For those leading humanity down an ignoble path

Must suffer a good right hand's righteous wrath,

A cursory epitaph of blackened death.

Then, and only then,

Is it time to pick the warrior’s stick!

There will always be madmen in this world,

Malefactors with hating around them unfurled.

My child, the light of innocence around you pearled,

Brave men must rise these evils to stop.

Honorable men must freedom's gauntlet drop,

Perverted ambitions to disrupt,

Immoral machinations to corrupt.

Some men bent on violent destruction

Will not hear your peaceful solution.

These prevaricators hold the truth not in them

For they would spread an ignominious seed,

Of unholy greed that makes good men bleed.

Ominous beasts would the world enchain,

Receive convoluted joy in others pain,

Saddle just with malcontent,

Trample truths held self evident,

Oppress nations without due consent.

Sprouting mutiny’s around the world will always blossom

Kidnaping the light of life to ransom,

Bolting into full scale revolt

That can be quelled only with a mighty thunderbolt.

Honor cannot suffer tyranny

So good men must strike while the iron is hot,

Or lose all good peace has wrought

By blood of patriots on battlefields bought.

With all your might

Stand always ready to fight the good fight.

Stand up for the right.

Answer the call

Patriotism to defend the right install

On which depend societies all.

Sacred freedoms with your life defend

To that life’s very end.

My child, there will always be pathways to choose,

And for every choice there are dues

You must pay.

There's the easy way,

The hard way,

The fun way,

The right way,

the wrong way,

Your way,

your friend’s way,

The ever popular low way,

My way or the highway.

Sometimes mid life's mortality

It takes the greatest bravery

To turn the other cheek,

To walk in the footsteps of the Master meek,

With forbearing meek and mild

Bearing simple innocence of a child.

Good men must peaceful seeds sow,

Winnowed in winds that fiercely blow,

To with pure hearts quell the greater foe,

Replacing angered hearts...so peace can grow.

=======================================

A COMBAT SOLDIER'S PRAYER

by Gary Jacobson © 1999

http://namtour.com/prayer.html

This combat soldier's prayer,

Who has served his time in Hell,

Is may we learn the lessons of war well,

That we not doom future generations,

The same old tales of horror to tell,

To endure what in youth they see mistakenly as glory.

Oh God, do not let our children

Repeat the same old story.

Make it so that America's babies live to grow old

In this land of the free and the bold.

Help us throw off the shackles of hate that bind

And grow old in a life of a peaceful kind.

Teach us that there is no glory in war,

Nor honor there that brave men should not abhor.

Teach us instead, one for another our brothers to love.

Shower us with thine Celestial message from above,

That we plant seeds of peace evermore

And make war-no-more!

But if I should die on some far, far away battlefield

Know I answered the call

For a grand principle of freedom to yield.

My fervent prayer is that death

May not have been in vain

Fighting for peace and right for the world to attain.

My brothers, American roses standing by my side

On alien soil dying

In the summer of my youthful pride

All the leaves around me falling,

Now I’m lying here still, in sunshine and in shadow,

Longing to hear, “brother next door, I love you so."

For moldering in the soft ground below,

I feel you living and loving in the world above me

Standing tall because I fought that you might be...

Oh look ye down now,

And tell me you still think of me

Honor my red blood, spilt that others might stand free.

Tell me that I did not give my all for you in vain

That brothers and sisters do not look upon my sacrifice

With hateful,

Or even worse,

Uncaring disdain.

Do not forget me when my valley’s hushed

And white with snow,

Grass growing green in the summer of my meadow

Help me see the peace I lived and died for grow.

Make my lonely grave richer,

Sweeter be...

Make this truly,

"The land of the free

And the home of the brave,"

I gave my life to save

That I might too, lie eternally,

Forever free...

************

Other Memorial Day poems:

"The Veteran," http://namtour.com/vet.html

"I FELT I'D DIED," http://namtour.com/died.html

"A Combat Soldier's Prayer," http://namtour.com/prayer.htm featured by the American Legion.

A special poem, a prayer, for those now in harm's way in Iraq:

"Prayer for the Warriors," http://namtour.com/theprayer.html

"Portraits of Heroes," by the artist Kasiah, http://namtour.com/heroes.html

"It Don’t Mean Nuthin’," http://namtour.com/nuthin.html

"My Thousand Yard Stare," http://namtour.com/stare.html

"PTSD," http://namtour.com/ptsd.html

"Welcome Home," http://namtour.com/welcomehome.html

"War’s so different, yet somehow still the same," http://namtour.com/different wars.html

"i’m no hero," http://namtour.com/hero.html

"Soldiers Of The Wall," http://namtour.com/wall.html

For our POW/MIA's "The Yellow Rose," http://namtour.com/yellowrose.html

"Feel their spirits lingering in the wind," http://namtour.com/spirits.html

"Agent orange," and "Feral Stalking Night," http://namtour.com/AgentOrange.html

"Wife of the Man, From Vietnam," http://namtour.com/wife.html The message here applies equally to wives of men from Iraq.

"A Mother Lost Her Son To War," http://namtour.com/MomLost.html

"There’s A Bad Moon Rising," http://namtour.com/badmoon.html

the Americal at: "LZ Snoopy And The Red Baron," http://namtour.com/snoopy.html

"Airborne, Hill 875," http://namtour.com/Airborne.html

"The Sound Of Guns," http://namtour.com/guns.html

"Song Of Napalm," http://namtour.com/napalm.html

"Just Before The Battle Mother," http://namtour.com/battlemother.html

"Just Marchin’ Through The Nam," http://namtour.com/march.html

"A Shau Ripcord," http://namtour.com/ripcord.html

"Rockets Of Tet," http://namtour.com/tet.html

"Airborne, Hill 875," http://namtour.com/Airborne.html

"Dawn Patrol," http://namtour.com/patrol.html

"Once We Were Young," http://namtour.com/once.html

"How Can I Keep From Singing," http://namtour.com/singing.html

"War’s Carousel," and "War And Peace," http://namtour.com/carousel.html

"We Were Soldiers," and "Eye of the Tiger," and "Combat," http://namtour.com/WeWereSoldiers.html

"One Day at a Time," and "The Hill," and "The Homeless Vet," http://namtour.com/day.html

We have a small blackboard at the front of our store. I wrote:

Remember

Our

Veterans

I wonder how many people will actually read it or even acknowledge it? Hey isn't this just a party weekend?

A very nice letter that was sent to Howard Huebner, WWII vet, from friend in Europe:

====================

Dear Mr Huebner

I was glad to read that you were remembered by so many all over the world on your 84th birthday and I hope you enjoyed every second of that very special day.

This weekend the people of Belgium and the Netherlands are remembering those who paid the ultimate price for our freedom so many years ago. I can imagine that at this time of the year your mind often wanders back to the many comrades you left behind on European battlefields. We here in Belgium and the people in the Netherlands will never forget your sacrifice.

Today there was a remembrance ceremony at the American Cemetery in Henri-Chapelle in Belgium , tomorrow there will be a ceremony at the American Cemetery in Margraten in the Netherlands .

The cemetery in Henri-Chapelle is the final resting place of 7,992 American brave young American souls who never returned to their families and loved ones.

I have included some of the photos I took this afternoon.

One of the two pillars at the front of the cemetery...

The front of the cemetery...

As you step through the openings at the front, you go onto the balcony of the cemetery...

the view to your right...

the view to your left...

One of your fallen comrades...

LEST WE FORGET

Link from J.H.

http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/refpages/Ref...refid=761552044

Memorial Day - MSN Encarta