As I am sure many of you have read Michael Avery, a professor from Suffolk University Law School not only balked at the idea of sending care packages to military men and women overseas in active duty, he took it a step further when he said in part:

“I think it is shameful that it is perceived as legitimate to solicit in an academic institution for support for men and women who have gone overseas to kill other human beings.”

He wrote this in response to a campus wide email soliciting holiday care packages. When you look at Mr. Avery’s academic background, it is easy to see why he has this twisted view of the world. Among his credits listed at Suffolk University’s Law School website, he attended the University of Moscow for one year and also has served as special counsel to the ACLU.

Now I could delve into a thoughtful, yet angry tirade about his insensitivity to the military. Or I could say that even as hateful and ignorant as his position is, he has a right to express it under the very First Amendment granted to him in the Constitution; a right that has been fought and died for by our brave military men and women since the birth of our great country.

However, while viewing the responses to the story about this on the Daily Caller’s website, I found one response to be the antithesis of Professor Avery’s asinine comments. I would like now, to post this response and the only attribution I can give is the screen name of the respondent – Night_wolf_45.

Mr Avery,

While a majority of e-mails pertaining to your distaste for US care packages will likely be hostile in nature, I assure you that my message will strive to be anything but. As a US soldier and an officer in a light infantry brigade, I have seen both the dark side of humanity as well as sacrifice in its most pure form. Though not as educated, nor as knowledgeable as you in a vast number of areas, I may speak from experience when noting our operations overseas. While it is true that armies deal in death, we also strive to protect life, as a medical platoon leader in Afghanistan we served both civilian and hostile force with the same diligence and care as we would an American causality. On numerous occasions we treated children screaming from the shrapnel of a misplaced footstep as well as those who proved to be the genesis of the aforementioned injury.

Professor Avery, we do not deal solely in death, as if we did I would not find this career to be a suitable alternative to the academic realm of which I one day wish to return. In fact my job is honestly the antithesis of death, as it is for a vast majority of those who adorn the regalia of a soldier in a modern army. Unlike our enemies, we care for those who bleed, regardless of their affiliation, unlike those who wish us harm, we attempt to abide by the laws of war, and unlike those who leave explosives in crowded streets, we attempt to protect those who cannot protect themselves. While you may see this as an ignorant and idealized version of war, I could say the same for the comments you yourself had made. I am not a murderer Mr. Avery, nor do I condone the slaughter of civilians, I am a man who made a choice to protect living beings in a land that I would otherwise have never seen. True I have witnessed death, from the labored respirations of a dying member of the ANA, to the metaphorical demise of innocence, found in the tear strewn face of a soldier who had lost a comrade before their eyes.  You see Mr. Avery, we were not the agents of death, but rather the nemesis of it. Even when the biological limitations of an individual were on the verge of collapse, we only relented in our battle with mortality when our clinical limitations and beleaguered efforts, could not overcome the inevitable. I am not asking to be called a hero sir, a title that would be better applied to the remarkable men who served under me, I’m simply asking to not be labeled a murderer. As a man of law you can see the distinct difference, if your generalization of those in uniform were to be true, and if all men and women were guilty by association, one would ultimately be forced to surmise that there would be no one left to guard the institutions, as we would all be interned. True, many of us are unremarkable, and unlike those with an outstanding intellect and pension for academia, we found a career in which we can excel. However, regardless of political ideations, we are often taken from home to fulfill the call of duty, both the one were a legally bound to answer, and the one we ourselves intrinsically create. We leave our wives, children, pets, parents, loved ones, bills and personal strife behind us, for a penance of what we should be paid, in a land we seldom know. You see sir, a care package is not a message of death, nor is it a cluster of bullets in a chamber pointed at a child, if anything, it’s a reminder that we are remembered and we are longed for.”

With thoughtful, intelligent folks like this in the military, not only do I feel a swell of patriotism, but I see light at the end of the tunnel of darkness that is modern progressivism.

Sept. 15, 2011 President Barack Obama makes remarks before awarding the Medal of Honor to Dakota Meyer, left, the first Marine to be so honored for actions in Aghanistan, at White House ceremony. "You did your duty, above and beyond," Obama told Meyer after reciting his dramatic story. Though the corporal and a fellow Marine were going against orders — commanders considered their effort too dangerous — they were doing what they thought was right, Obama said. Bill O'Leary / The Washington Post

Fortunately for us, we have a living hero to receive the Medal of Honor and not a dead one.

NYTimes account of the September 8, 2009 ambush in eastern Afghanistan:

Mr. Meyer, 23, now a sergeant in the inactive reserve, was an infantry corporal on Sept. 8, 2009, when an Afghan and American column headed before dawn toward the village of Ganjigal in Kunar Province.

The men in column — a mix of Afghan soldiers, border police officers and American trainers — were to meet with local elders. But they had been betrayed and walked into an ambush.

Corporal Meyer and another Marine had been assigned to secure a flank, and as Taliban gunfire began and the rest of his team was trapped, he was several hundred yards away.

Corporal Meyer listened on the radio as the rest of his Marine training team tried calling for help, and as Capt. Will Swenson of the Army, who worked with the border police and was also trapped, shouted into his radio for artillery support to suppress the Taliban fighters.

Officers at the nearby Army headquarters denied the request for artillery support, leaving the men, many of them wounded, to fight on their own until helicopter gunships arrived. (Investigations later suggested the Army officers decided that because the trapped troops were unaware of the precise locations of all of the other troops on the operation, artillery fire might have endangered them and was best withheld.)

Corporal Meyer asked permission several times to go into the ravine and to fight. He was told to remain in place, but decided to rush to the village nonetheless.

In the course of six hours, survivors said, Corporal Meyer and his driver, Staff Sgt. Juan J. Rodriguez-Chavez, led five fights into the ravine toward Ganjigal. Four times they helped recover wounded men, first Afghans who were pinned down and later Americans similarly trapped.

After the corporal freed Captain Swenson, the captain joined him in the fighting while an Army platoon nearby declined to help. On the last trip they recovered the remains of three Marines and a Navy corpsman. By then, according to the Marine Corps’ account of the fight, Corporal Meyer had killed eight Taliban fighters and stood up to several dozen more. (A fifth American later died of wounds suffered in the ravine.)

Two years on, the ambush in Ganjigal has been examined, reexamined and presented in many different ways, often as an institutional failure and an example of the limits and dangers of the counterinsurgency theory that was pressed upon the troops by Gen. David H. Petraeus and the Pentagon. The betrayal by the villagers, the confused lines of command, the withheld artillery fire, the inaction of an Army platoon that might have helped the trapped men — have all been documented.

In his remarks on Thursday, Mr. Obama did not mention the local treachery or the lapses of officers who might have helped that day. Instead, he dwelled on Mr. Meyer, who is described as a remarkable selfless example of a citizen at his best.

“Dakota later confessed,” the president said, of the fighting in Ganjigal, “I didn’t think I was going to die. I knew I was.”

DoD:

Meyer and others who had joined him picked up the fallen Marines and, “through all those bullets, all the smoke, all the chaos, carried them out one by one – because as Dakota says, that’s what you do for a brother,” the commander in chief said.

“Dakota says he’ll accept this medal in their name,” the president said. “So today, we remember the husband who loved the outdoors, Lt. Michael Johnson; the husband and father they called ‘Gunny J,’ Gunnery Sgt. Edwin Johnson; the determined Marine who fought to get on that team, Staff Sgt. Aaron Kenefick; the medic who gave his life tending to his teammates, Hospitalman 3rd Class James Layton; and a soldier wounded in that battle who was never recovered: Sgt. 1st Class Kenneth Westbrook.”

Obama said while he knows Meyer has thought of himself as a failure because some of his teammates didn’t come home, “as your commander in chief, and on behalf of everyone here today and all Americans, I want you to know it’s quite the opposite.”

“Because of your honor, 36 men are alive today,” the president said. “Because of your courage, four fallen American heroes came home, and in the words of James Layton’s mom, [their families] could lay their sons to rest with dignity.”

Meyer’s father, Mike, grandparents, and more than a hundred friends and family members attended today’s ceremony.

Because of Meyer’s humble example, children all across America will know that “no matter who you are or where you come from, you can do great things as a citizen and a member of the American family,” the president said.

From WaPo:

When President Obama recently called to tell Meyer he would be awarded the Medal of Honor, the military’s highest honor, Meyer didn’t take the call. Meyer, now 23, was working a new job in construction and asked the president to call him back another time.

“He told me, ‘If I don’t work, I don’t get paid,’ ” Obama recounted with a chuckle Thursday afternoon at the medal ceremony for Meyer in the gilded East Room of the White House.

“Dakota is the kind of guy who gets the job done,” Obama said.

Meyer, of Kentucky, became just the third service member to earn the award for service in the Afghanistan or Iraq wars, and he’s the first living Marine to have earned the honor since 1973.

~~~

The Obama administration has previously awarded the Medal of Honor to two other Afghan war veterans. Army Staff Sgt. Salvatore A. Giunta, who received the award on Nov. 27, 2010, and Sgt. 1st Class Leroy A. Petry, who was honored at a White House ceremony last month.

Marine Cpl. Jason E. Dunham is the only other Marine out of the 10 Medal of Honor recipients for actions in the two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Doug Mills/The New York Times "An American who placed himself in the thick of the fight." That is how President Obama described Dakota Meyer on Thursday in awarding him the Medal of Honor for helping rescue fellow Marines pinned down in battle in Afghanistan.

After the propaganda effort by the MSM to elect the empty suit called Obama, everyone is extremely suspicious of efforts to promote this man of no accomplishment. Thus when the White House gave Sony (a company that just hosted another fund raiser for the eternal campaigner) the supposed top secret details of the mission to assassinate Osama, the paranoia strikes deep; but seriously, is this president that ignorant to publicize top secret data on the wide screen to the world? I don’t think so

There is paranoia over Sony’s movie on Bin Laden; I am not sure it is worthy of our attention. Scheduled to be released a month before the presidential election, Conservatives are convinced it will be an attempt to cast Obama as a commander of commandos type role who couldn’t have been closer unless he was in the chopper and Liberals are hoping against common sense, it will portray the president in a positive light and will make the American public forget the failures of the past.

There are several factors within this dynamic that we as Conservatives and Liberals are ignoring. Propaganda films in the tradition of Goebbels are painfully obvious and laughable by standards of a literate viewer. The films of Michael Moore come to mind and they certainly swayed a segment of the cerebrally challenged, but now they have become cult films for those who are intrigued by the bald faced lies.

We are now comparing directors, Goebbels and Moore, they are considered caricatures of serious film directors. Robert Redford is a serious director who lets his political convictions overwhelm his artistic talent and his legacy will reflect his compromises.

Kathryn Bigelow is scheduled to direct the Bin Laden Film. She directed The Hurt Locker, if you recall there was no political motive expressed in that movie. It portrayed the characters who defuse the bombs in Iraq and she portrayed them in a manner that left the viewer breathless during the intense drama of the action scenes; at least I was breathing hard and my hands were shaking during those scenes. She did it, she showed us the men who do an unsung job and portrayed them as heroes. She didn’t promote the BS like the typical Hollywood Liberal of the Meryl Streep, Robert Redwood tradition of hating everything about America but the money.

In other words, she relied on artistic talent rather than Leftist rubbish to portray our heroes, a rare quality for our movie people.

She has a following and a name that can be developed. Do you really think she will jeopardize her future to make a propaganda movie for a failure like Obama.

A propaganda movie can also backfire on the Liberals and Obama leaving them shattered for decades. The world is not the naive place it was when Gore and Moore promoted their lies to the world.

I may be the only Conservative who feels this way, but I say let Bigelow make her movie. She, the Liberals, and Obama know the gamble of not portraying this mission accurately and the inevitable result of a propaganda movie becoming the laughingstock of the world.

There are many former service men and active military who will be watching this movie with the most critical eyes in the world. You aren’t going to fool these patriots. Let the cameras roll or should I say let the heads roll if you mess up.

The debt ceiling talk overshadowed an important story yesterday. The Medal of Honor was awarded to Army Sgt. Leroy Petry

That hand he is missing is one of the reasons why he was awarded our nations highest honor. He was wounded in a firefight after which a grenade landed near him and two of his fellow Rangers, he picked it up and threw it but not before it detonated shortly after it left his hand, destroying the hand but saving the lives of his two friends and himself. A robotic arm was fitted to his arm, he reenlisted and then went back to war.

The man is a stud.

UNITED STATES ARMY

On May 26, 2008, Staff Sergeant Leroy A. Petry, as a member of a Ranger helicopter assault force conducting a daylight rotary wing raid in the vicinity of Paktya, Afghanistan, distinguished himself conspicuously and with gallantry and intrepidness, by risking his life above and beyond the call of duty, during an extremely close and violent engagement with an extraordinarily determined and well armed enemy. During the initial engagement, Staff Sergeant Petry was shot through both legs and another Ranger was hit by enemy fire. Shortly thereafter, an enemy hand grenade landed amid Staff Sergeant Petry and two other Rangers; despite his serious leg wounds, Staff Sergeant Petry unhesitatingly moved to the grenade, grabbed it, and immediately threw the armed grenade away from his fellow Rangers. The grenade detonated shortly after Staff Sergeant Petry threw it away from his fellow Rangers resulting in a catastrophic amputation of his right hand and multiple shrapnel wounds penetrating his body. This deliberate individual act of heroism by Staff Sergeant Petry saved the lives of his fellow comrades and allowed the completion of the mission.

The helicopter assault force was committed to execute a rare daylight raid to accomplish the mission based on the high value of the target and its fleeting nature. Soldiers and helicopter assets were exposed to unusual risk by landing within small arms range of confirmed enemy forces. At 1334z. on May 26, 2008, the assault force began to clear the objective area. Sergeant Petry’s task was to locate himself with the platoon headquarters in the target building once it was secured and serve as the senior Non-Commissioned at that site for the remainder of the operation. Recognizing one of the assault squads needed assistance clearing their assigned building, Staff Sergeant Petry relayed to the Platoon Leader that he was moving to the squad to provide additional supervision and guidance during the clearance of the building. Once the residential portion of the building had been cleared, Staff Sergeant Petry took a member of the assault squad, Private First Class Lucas Robinson, to clear the outer courtyard knowing it had not been cleared during the initial clearance. Both Rangers moved into an area of the compound that contained at least three enemy fighters that were prepared to engage friendly forces from opposite ends of the outer courtyard. Staff Sergeant Petry and Private First Class Robinson entered the courtyard and immediately to their front was an opening followed by a small chicken coop. As they moved to cross the open area before the chicken coop, an enemy insurgent accurately engaged them with AK-47 fire from an approximate range of 10 meters. Staff Sergeant Petry was wounded by one round, which went through both of his legs, and Private First Class Robinson was hit in his side plate by a separate round. While wounded and under accurate enemy fire, Staff Sergeant Petry led Private First Class Robinson to the cover of the chicken coop. The enemy continued to deliver accurate sustained fire in the vicinity of the chicken coop as Staff Sergeant Petry rapidly assessed the situation and reported that contact was made and that there were two wounded Rangers in the courtyard of the primary target building.

Upon hearing the report of two wounded Rangers, Sergeant Daniel Higgins, a team leader, immediately moved to the outer courtyard. As Sergeant Higgins was moving to Staff Sergeant Petry’s and Private First Class Robinson’s position, Staff Sergeant Petry threw a thermobaric grenade in the vicinity of the enemy position. Shortly after the grenade exploded, which created a lull in the enemy fire, Sergeant Higgins arrived at their position and began assessing their wounds. While Sergeant Higgins was evaluating the severity of their wounds, an insurgent threw a grenade over the chicken coop at the three Rangers. The grenade landed approximately ten meters from the three Rangers, knocked them to the ground, and wounded Sergeant Higgins and Private First Class Robinson. Shortly after the grenade exploded, Staff Sergeant James Roberts and Specialist Christopher Gathercole entered the courtyard moving towards the contact. Staff Sergeant Petry, Sergeant Higgins, and Private First Class Robinson were still grouped together on the side of the chicken coop when another grenade landed a few feet from Sergeant Higgins and Private First Class Robinson. Recognizing the threat that the enemy grenade posed to his fellow Rangers, Staff Sergeant Petry, despite his own wounds and with complete disregard for his personal safety, consciously and deliberately risked his life to move to and secure the live enemy grenade and consciously throw the grenade away his fellow Rangers, removing the immediate threat to their lives. As Staff Sergeant Petty released the grenade in the direction of the enemy, preventing the serious injury or death of Sergeant Higgins and Private First Class Robinson, it detonated and catastrophically amputated Staff Sergeant Petry’s right hand. With a clear mind, Staff Sergeant Petry assessed his wound and quickly placed a tourniquet on his right arm. Once this was complete he reported that he was still in contact and that he had been wounded again.

Staff Sergeant Petry’s selfless and conspicuous gallantry during daylight hours of May 26, 2008 undeniably risked his life while saving the lives of two fellow Rangers and through great individual sacrifice and personal intrepidness enabled the assault force to accomplish its mission. His actions epitomize the Army’s Warrior Spirit and have brought great credit to the 75th Ranger Regiment.

The Army’s webpage in honor of Sgt. Petry is well done with multiple graphics of the fight:

Job well done soldier

Arleen Ocascio, director of the VA cemetery in Houston, has decided to take the Marxist Revolution a step further and has decreed that there will be no references to God or Jesus and that all ceremonies must be written and submitted to her for pre-approval. Obviously, this low level bureaucrat has decided Obama’s Revolution is stalled and she must pick up the standard and impose her will on the veterans who come to the cemetery to bury their loved ones.

According to her, there will be no mention of a Christian or Jewish God at future ceremonies, she has spoken and her feelings reflect the Democrats and their antagonism against God. There seems to be no antagonism against Allah, at least he has not been mentioned in Ms Ocascio’s demands that religion or God not be mentioned in the ceremonies taking place in her cemetery.

Marilyn Koepp, Secretary of the National Memorial Ladies, a volunteer group that attends every funeral at this particular cemetery, was told by Arleen Ocascio that they could not mention God while on the cemetery grounds.

It’s true that Obama’a Democrats wants to erase all traces of God from public buildings and our schools, but why must they insist that the veterans who pay the ultimate sacrifice or old heroes from the wars of yesteryear deny the presence of God before being interred with their brothers. Why is this tyrant being allowed to impose the Socialist creed against religion on the grieving families of our patriots. Is Obama’s hatred of our military, going to be allowed to force undue suffering on our Goldstar families when they are at their most vulnerable time.

There is a movement calling for the firing of Arleen Ocascio, not a reassignment, a termination. It is imperative that we demand her termination; otherwise, similar encroachments by Obama’s Socialism will continue to erode away our freedoms and the Constitution. If we allow every Marxist ideologue with a bit of power to usurp our freedoms at their whim, we will lose our Liberty.

This woman must be terminated, not transferred to sow other cushy job, but terminated without benefits. We can no longer stand around and watch these petty tyrants throw their weight around and cower in fear. They are petty Marxists who think they have power over the Constitution because of Obama’s disregard for the Constitution.

We have been pushed, it is time to show these pathetic little Marxists how the brotherhood of patriots regards their disregard and disdain of our basic rights and freedoms.

Don't Mess With Our Vets

Have a great Fourth of July,
think of our troops now and again
You see, fireworks mean they might die
Give pause to think what might have been

If not for those brave souls who stand
so that we patriots and cowards alike
Can sleep and dream in this great land
And play with kids on wobbly bikes

Pray for them who ask so little, yet give so much
While they walk point in Obama’s manmade Hells
Yet Obama says they must beg for a mere crutch
And pay their own insurance to guard their health

While he flies with dauntless courage in Air Force One
Tirelessly on guard to protect us each and everyone
But please let them know there are those among us
Who love them and would never throw them under the bus

No, this isn’t a picture describing Obama’s military budget cuts. I took this picture today here at Ft. Hood because of the absurdity of it! This Soldier is cutting the grass WITH A KEVLAR ON!!

Is the Army afraid that an armed ninja groundhog is going to spring from the grass and open up with a fury never before witnessed on earth? Maybe we’re worried that the sky is going to all on his head. Or, perhaps, he may fall off the lawn mower going around a corner and the impact from falling two and half feet would be too much for his noggin! Yet, we’re forcing him to wear an Advanced Combat Helmet – a piece of equipment worth more than $1,000 – to mow the lawn!

So, that got me to thinking about safety. I mean, if we’re serious about safety, I noticed some glaring violations here:

1. No reflective belt. He could get hit by a semi-truck that just didn’t see him!
2. No steel toed boots. What if he falls off and the mower runs over his toes! Oh the horror!
3. No hearing protection. Yes, it’s a John Deere and probably not that loud, but what if a rocks ricochets off the building and lodges in his inner ear canal?
4. No M9 pistol. How else would he deal with that ninja groundhog?!
5. No IFAK (Improved First Aid Kit). I mean without wearing all the other stuff, he NEEDS this!
6. No gloves. That steering wheel has to be hot in the Texas sun.
7. No knee or elbow pads. In order for him to be able to take out the ninja groundhog, he’ll need to a quick PLF off the mower into a duck and roll fighting position. We don’t need him skinning up vital joints in the process.
8. No NCO. WHY ISN’T THERE A SERGEANT PROTECTING THIS TROOPER AND WATCHING HIS SIX?!

I originally wrote this for my blog, but then decided that perhaps it’s information that I can better encourage debate on here.

Yesterday, the local morning conservative talk show host brought up a question about the status of veterans. He said that words mean things and he’s right. The issue was the Stolen Valor Act (which I disagree with, believe it or not) and whether veterans that never served in Vietnam, but served in the military during the Vietnam War, can be called “Vietnam Veterans.”

The host was trying to make the case that if someone serves in the military during a time of war, there is nothing wrong with calling themselves a “[insert campaign/war name] Veteran.” I wholeheartedly disagree. I see his point of view, but military personnel don’t think this way.

For example, I was in the Army during Kosovo, Bosnia, Afghanistan, and Iraq, but I’m only an Iraq Veteran. I never served in those other conflicts (well, I head to Afghanistan in a few weeks) and would NEVER call myself a Kosovo Veteran or a Bosnia Veteran. I would never call myself an Afghanistan Veteran before serving there!

The next point was that many veterans are beginning to use the term “Vietnam-Era or Desert Storm-Era Veteran.” I’m confused by this. My father served in the Navy (32 years before retiring) during the Vietnam War and has NEVER called himself a Vietnam-Era Veteran. He’s a Veteran!

The status of “Veteran” is already – or should already be – an honorable title. I don’t understand why some veterans seem to want to inflate their status by saying that they served during a particular war. The way I see it is that these people aren’t satisfied with their service and are trying to puff themselves up.

For the veterans out there, this is what I’d like to know. I think it confuses civilians who have no clue about military service. They hear Vietnam Veteran or Iraq Veteran and the assumption is that this Soldier or Marine or whatever served IN combat!

The host thinks it’s okay for veterans to just call themselves veterans of a particular war just by virtue of serving during a time of conflict. Now, I can see his point. To some degree, everyone that serves in the military during wartime is to some degree helping the effort. We still have a stateside mission of training and equipping forward deployed units, but it’s a completely different job entirely. You can’t be a veteran of war when you’ve never been in potential life-threatening danger. And I think that just the act of serving in and of itself is an honorable endeavor worthy of respect from Americans whether that honorable service lasted a month or 32 years!!

Not everyone gets to serve in combat. Sometimes it’s by choice and sometimes it’s just the cards that are dealt. Just ask my wife how frustrated I’ve been that I haven’t deployed since I returned from the Iraq War in late 2003! While others have 3, 4, and 5 deployments, I’ve been resting on ONE! It drives me nuts, but I kept getting slotted in positions that weren’t deployable.

When I got home from Iraq, I was PCS’d (moved for civilians out there) to Fort Irwin to head up the Task Force IED to train deploying troops on how to recognize, identify, and react to IEDs. The position was a non-deployable position that I was in for about two years. After that, I was transferred to a unit in D.C. with a very specialized mission. I did have a chance to deploy to an interrogation billet, but that jackwagon John McCain ruined my deployment when he made changes to the definition of an “interrogator” and I was immediately considered “unqualified” despite my extensive training and experience. This, of course, was a response to the Abu Ghraib situation and qualified interrogators must have gone through the military interrogation school. I went through a defense-contracted interrogation course that basically taught the same thing, but wasn’t good enough even though I was a highly successful interrogator in Iraq, capturing 8 of the top 55 in the deck of cards! After that assignment, I was assigned as a First Sergeant at a strategic unit in Huntsville, AL – another non-deployable slot.

So, I couldn’t help it for the past six years. When it was time to move on, I ensured I would get deployed and chose a unit I knew was slated to head to Afghanistan. I want to do my part and I don’t feel comfortable personally resting on my one deployment while so many others have sacrificed so much more.

There are instances where that happens, but the jobs that I filled during the past six years were just as important. It was a vital piece of the overall mission that SOMEONE has to do and there is nothing dishonorable or wrong with that. Why would any veteran want to call themselves a Vietnam Veteran, Desert Storm Veteran, Iraq Veteran, or Afghanistan Veteran when they didn’t actually fight in those wars unless they were trying to mislead people? Why do some of our veterans feel the need to identify themselves as an “era” veteran? Have we really diminished the service of our great Americans that much that the mere act of serving and being a “Veteran” is no longer enough?

I don’t think so.

The above cartoon describes the state of this holiday pretty damn good. While many of us take the time to remember the sacrifices of our heroes many others ignore it and party hard due to the 3 day weekend. We must remind those people that this day was proclaimed a day to remember. Remembering those who have fallen and those who are still serving:

click pictures to view videos

Memorial Day was officially proclaimed on 5 May 1868 by General John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, in his General Order No. 11, and was first observed on 30 May 1868, when flowers were placed on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery.

The first state to officially recognize the holiday was New York in 1873. By 1890 it was recognized by all of the northern states. The South refused to acknowledge the day, honoring their dead on separate days until after World War I (when the holiday changed from honoring just those who died fighting in the Civil War to honoring Americans who died fighting in any war).

It is now celebrated in almost every State on the last Monday in May (passed by Congress with the National Holiday Act of 1971 (P.L. 90 – 363) to ensure a three day weekend for Federal holidays), though several southern states have an additional separate day for honoring the Confederate war dead: January 19 in Texas, April 26 in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Mississippi; May 10 in South Carolina; and June 3 (Jefferson Davis’ birthday) in Louisiana and Tennessee.

In 1915, inspired by the poem, In Flanders Fields, Moina Michael replied with her own poem:

We cherish too, the Poppy red
That grows on fields where valor led,
It seems to signal to the skies
That blood of heroes never dies.

She then conceived of an idea to wear red poppies on Memorial day in honor of those who died serving the nation during war. She was the first to wear one, and sold poppies to her friends and co-workers with the money going to benefit servicemen in need.

Later a Madam Guerin from France was visiting the United States and learned of this new custom started by Ms.Michael and when she returned to France, made artificial red poppies to raise money for war orphaned children and widowed women. This tradition spread to other countries. In 1921, the Franco-American Children’s League sold poppies nationally to benefit war orphans of France and Belgium. The League disbanded a year later and Madam Guerin approached the VFW for help. Shortly before Memorial Day in 1922 the VFW became the first veterans’ organization to nationally sell poppies. Two years later their “Buddy” Poppy program was selling artificial poppies made by disabled veterans. In 1948 the US Post Office honored Ms Michael for her role in founding the National Poppy movement by issuing a red 3 cent postage stamp with her likeness on it.

Traditional observance of Memorial day has diminished over the years. Many Americans nowadays have forgotten the meaning and traditions of Memorial Day. At many cemeteries, the graves of the fallen are increasingly ignored, neglected. Most people no longer remember the proper flag etiquette for the day. While there are towns and cities that still hold Memorial Day parades, many have not held a parade in decades. Some people think the day is for honoring any and all dead, and not just those fallen in service to our country.

Most people blame the fact that Congress decided in 1971 to change the day to the last Monday of the month so we all could get a 3 day weekend. There has been multiple bills in Congress by Sen. Daniel Inouye [D-HI] that would restore it back to May 30th, with this one being the latest. Of course no action has been taken on them.

Until then it’s up to each and every one of us to remind people what this day stands for.

For those who served our country and gave all.

Korea:

In Afghanistan

In battlefields from Normandy, Antietam, Gettysburg, Trenton, Iwo Jima, Midway, Khe Sahn, Fallujah, Baghdad and thousands of other battlefields over the past 200 plus years.

Remember those who gave all.  And remember those who are still serving with honor

This Memorial Day please take two minutes out of your day at 3pm local time for a National Moment of Remembrance.

Reflect on those who have died to protect our way of life and those who are still serving

Finally, a short video on the true meaning of Memorial Day:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Baltimore Sun photo by Chien-Chi Chang

“Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the Medal of Honor didn’t exist because there were no wars and we could all live in peace?’’-Paul J. Wiedorfer, WWII Medal of Honor Recipient

Born July 17, 1921 in Baltimore, he was the last surviving WWII Medal of Honor recipient in Maryland and died at the age of 89 this past Wednesday from heart failure at Loch Raven Community Living and Rehabilitation Center.

Part of his story...

Like so many of his countrymen, Mr. Wiedorfer didn’t seem the heroic type. He was working at a responsible job for Baltimore Gas & Electric in the early years of World War II, and, because it was a war industry, he didn’t go into the Army until 1943. He ended up in Europe, in the long, bloody slog to Germany that followed D-Day.

Assigned to Company G, 318th Infantry, 80th Division, his unit was part of General George S. Patton Jr.’s Third Army. They were sent in to rescue American troops who were trapped in Bastogne, Belgium; and on Christmas Day, 23 year-old Wiedorfer saw combat for the first time…

On Christmas Day 1944, during the Battle of the Bulge, Mr. Wiedorfer’s platoon was ambushed in Belgium by two concealed German machine gun emplacements. Pinned down, helpless, the unit seemed in danger of suffering heavy casualties, when Mr. Wiedorfer took the initiative. “I was probably a little nuts when I did it,” he told the Baltimore Sun in an interview a half-century later. “But someone was going to die if something didn’t get done.” He ran as best he could across a 120-foot stretch of open, snow-covered ground toward the guns. “Miraculously escaping injury,” as his medal citation put it, he got to within 10 yards of the first machine gun nest, threw in a hand grenade, and shot and killed the three German soldiers manning the gun. He then attacked the other gun, killing one of its crew. Six more quickly surrendered to him.

Wiedorfer was given a battlefield promotion to sergeant that afternoon. Minutes later, he had to assume command when his platoon’s leader and sergeant were wounded.

Less than two months later, in Germany, Mr. Wiedorfer was badly wounded by mortar fire. The soldier next to him, Pfc. Milton C. Smithers of Huntingdon, N.J., took the brunt of the explosion and was killed.

According to the Baltimore Sun:

Three days before V-E Day on May 8, 1945, Mr. Wiedorfer, who was 24, was recuperating at the 137th U.S. Army General Hospital in England from severe wounds he suffered in a mortar attack while crossing the Saar River earlier that year.

In the attack, a fellow infantryman near Mr. Wiedorfer, who was a staff sergeant, was killed instantly by an exploding mortar shell. Shrapnel ripped into Mr. Wiedorfer’s stomach, broke his left leg and riddled his right. Two fingers on his right hand were seriously injured.

“That was Feb. 10, 1945. The sergeant’s back was blown wide open, and he was dead when he hit the ground. I was just lucky, I guess,” he said in the 2008 interview. “I spent more than three years in hospitals recovering from those wounds.”

Another patient was reading Stars and Stripes when an item caught his eye, and he asked Mr. Wiedorfer, “How do you spell your name?”

“It really was funny,” he said in the 2008 interview. “I said, ‘W-i-e-d-o-r-f-e-r,’ and he said, ‘You just got a medal.’ I said was it the Bronze Star, and he said no, ‘Congressional Medal of Honor.’

“To be perfectly honest with you, I wasn’t really sure what the hell it was, because all I was was some dogface guy in the infantry,” he told the newspaper.

“All the officers and nurses were wearing their Class A uniforms and there was a band. Gen. E.F. Koening came into the ward and presented the medal,” he recalled. “I really was embarrassed by all the fuss.”

He was made to give a “little speech” and said he was so nervous because he had never given a speech before in his life (and apologized to the mayor for getting his name wrong).

Here is the full text of his Medal of Honor citation. In addition, Wiedorfer was also awarded 2 Purple Hearts and the Bronze Star.

A little more:

He separated from the military in 1947 as a master sergeant and was a power station operator with Baltimore Gas and Electric when he retired in 1981.

In the early 1990s, a man came to Mr. Wiedorfer’s home and offered to polish his Medal of Honor. The man took the authentic medal from its ceremonial shadow box and replaced it with an imitation. Mr. Wiedorfer’s stolen medal was returned to him in 1995. Stephen Pyne, who was charged with the theft, was sentenced to 18 months in prison.

Mr. Wiedorfer’s wife, the former Alice Stauffer, died in 2008. A daughter, Nancy Mazer, died in 2010.

Survivors include three children, Randee Wiedorfer of Parkville, Md., Paul J. Wiedorfer Jr. of Baltimore and Gary Wiedorfer of Cocoa, Fla.; six grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.

As he aged, Mr. Wiedorfer said he prayed for the day there would be no living recipients of the Medal of Honor.

“Because,” he once said, “it will mean that we have learned to live in peace.”

Today, 84 recipients remain.