For all the guys who never made it home ...

[11 Bravo]

and for all the guys who lost a piece of themselves they can never retrieve:

Memorial Day is for you (but I've never found a whole lot of "Happy" to attach to it).

[grasswire]

1. thank you for the reminder.

I honor them all. I have six uncles buried in the ww2 section of the military cemetery here, and two cousins there also who were Vietnam vets. My Uncle Bob was a P.O.W. of the Japanese Imperial Army; he was captured in the fall of Corregidor. Three and a half years later, he was missing a leg, but liberated with a Distinguished Service Cross, and other medals. A legendary figure in my childhood. Another uncle was at Battle of the Bulge as well as in North Africa. He spent four years as a foot soldier.

My uncle Bob told us: "Never forget". And we don't.

And thank you, 11 Bravo. Very much.

[babylonsister]

2. Hey,

thank YOU for your service, and I agree about the 'happy'. There's nothing 'happy' about what this weekend was created for, but I'm in FL and there were a lot of really happy people out on the beach. Then it rained pretty hard. Karma?

[dflprincess]

3. I just want to point out that there have been many female military personnel who never made it home

The first WWII casualty from my mom's home town was an Army nurse.

Let's remember the guys and the gals.

[sarge43]

11. Thank you.

[phylny]

21. Thank you for saying this! n/t

[cliffordu]

4. K&R

Not a lot of happy here either.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

5. K&R for visibility

[Rex]

6. For all the women and men that did make it home.

[allan01]

7. silent keys who made the ulitmate sacrafice , memorial day has mulitple menaings for me .

i remember them and also remember my family units and friends who passed to the other side.
..........

[FailureToCommunicate]

8. Thank you. Memorial Day, yes. Happy, not so much.

I honor my father, a chaplain in WW ll, Korea, then Vietnam.

[keithbvadu2]

9. (A Soldier Died Today)

Memorial Day

http://vaincourt.homestead.com/common_soldier.html

JUST A COMMON SOLDIER
(A Soldier Died Today)
by A. Lawrence Vaincourt

[SCantiGOP]

10. Thanks for that

I used to love to get my Dad to tell stories about WW2, but I know I never heard the really scary times. He didn't want to puff himself up - he felt like he just did his job.

[840high]

12. ....

[Jack Rabbit]

13. In their honor, there should not be one mor drop of American blood shed for oil

[Silver_Witch]

14. Every Memorial Day I remember by missing friends

All the young men around me that "disappeared" in Vietnam and only came home in a box. I remember then and wonder what they would have become. So handsome, so young, so funny, so tall, so thin, so stocky, so rugged..each of them a man I would have been happy to know.

No MORE War! Please no more!

[pinboy3niner]

15. In Remembrance of those we knew and lost

And all of the men and women we've lost too soon to war.


--Opening title card, 'Platoon'

[1939]

16. My grandmother

always called it Decoration Day because it was the day to go place flowers on the graves of the Civil War fallen. Her uncle was killed at Spottsylvania with the 24th Michigan (Iron Brigade). The G.A.R. post in Canton, Michigan was named after my great-great uncle
Reuben. Now it has become the "first weekend of summer".

[Kang Colby]

17. I agree.

[mia]

18. Well said.

Thank you.

[TNNurse]

19. Clearly the folks who posted here

understand the meaning of Memorial Day. The majority of the country does not. It has turned into a party with sales of cars and mattresses. Has anyone ever done that at an actual memorial? I do not mind that people gather together and I do know that there are solemn services but for most it is just a party.

And no, I have never lost anyone close in war.

[progressoid]

20. Rec!

[Dont call me Shirley]

22. Veterans...

[mgardener]

23. I was thinking

Of the brothers of my classmates in grade school and high school who died in Vietnam.
It was a terrible time for them and their families.