Veterans Day............

[randy1]

.............to all veterans of the U.S.

Thank YOU for your service to our country................see ya mark

Here's a neat tribute:


http://www.jacquielawson.com/viewcard.asp?code=1545489532

[kdown]

That is a really cool tribute..........Thanks for sharing

[Chuck]

Kwel, Nice

[ponto]

All of us are familiar with the legendary flag raising on Mount Suribachi, but most could not name one of the six individuals in the famous picture taken during the Battle of Iwo Jima in1945.

Sgt. Michael Strank, Cpl. Harlon Block, Pfc. Ira Hayes, Pfc. Franklin Sousley and Pfc. Rene Gagnon are the five Marines in the photo and Petty Officer 2nd Class John Bradley was the Sailor who completed the group.

Sousley was born in Flemingsburg, Ky., Sept. 19, 1925. He was only 9 when he lost his father and took over the responsibilities as the man of the house. According to James Bradley, author of “Flags of Our Fathers,” Sousley was a “good old hillbilly” and a practical joker. He was a freckle-faced redhead who was raised on a tobacco farm before traveling in the Corps brought him to Iwo Jima.

Unfortunately, shortly after the raising of the flag three of the young men would meet their fate on the same foreign soil where the famed image captured them standing as they proudly raised Old Glory.

Sousley was the last of the flag raisers to die in the battle of Iwo Jima. According to the Arlington National Cemetery Web site, a sniper shot Sousley, and when someone asked him how he was doing, he replied, “Not bad. I don’t feel anything.” He then fell to the ground, lifeless. At the time of his death, Sousley was two years short of the legal drinking age of 21.

[FreeOurPOWs]

Thank you. For my Grandfather, my Father, my Uncle, two of my brothers, myself, and my son, I thank you.

[lone wolf]

Veterans Day, A date set-up to honor those who serve and to think about the price that was paid for our ability to live life as we do. A day to stop and
hopefully think about what has been done for past generations, current generations and future generations of US citizens. A date set-up for good intentions, but for some of us, it's a date that carries a dark cloud of feelings.

My family has a long line of Military service attached to it. Both sides of my parents family, consisted of large numbers of children. Each side had sent off
several of their offspring to serve our nation, just as the generation before it. We have been lucky, only a couple have given up their lives, several came home carrying wounds, both mental and physical.

Looking into a family album of ours and you can always see one member of our family wearing a uniform from one branch of the service. The albums serve as a history book of sorts. But I'm sure that my family isn't the only one like that, I'm sure that there are many others.

I can't speak for the other members of my family on their feelings of Veterans Day, but I can of course speak for mine. Veterans Day brings up many emotions in me, that range from the high side, being pride, to the low side being fear. All along this scale is the ever present emotions of solitude and rage. I've spent the last 31 years of my life learning to keep the emotion of rage under control, but the emotion of solitude is always there and even my old friend, rage, manages to sneak out once in a while.

I've lived in this area of Kentucky now for almost 15 years and I can honestly say that up until the last couple of years, the only people that I knew were those with whom I work with. During the last couple of years, I've been dating a wonderful woman who has been slowly but surely bringing out old feelings that I had forgotten about. The feelings of simple happiness that you get by just being around living things, such as animals or just being able to let my guard down and relax. For that I thank her dearly.

But each year I dread Veterans day. Each year I go into a pattern of being off balance the week before the day hits. I do my best to avoid the parades, or heaven forbid, having to come forward and being in the spotlight of my fellow human beings and saying yes, I have served. Rage, I can do without, but solitude is my best friend.

So go ahead and celebrate Veterans day, be thankful that you or one of your loved ones survived, be thankful that you have the ability to live a life filled with choices, be thankful that you live and that freedom is a common everyday event. But for some of us it serves a dark side, a portal to a time and place that we wish we never saw and one that we never forget.

[lauralee]

Thank you doesn't seem nearly enough for our service people but I know our constant prayers are. My son-in-law just returned home from Iraq after a year and is ok. I can't imagine, but know there was a time when there was no internet, cell phones, news media in the wars before, when a soldier was serving you may not have heard any news during their tours. My great uncle served with Patton and never spoke of the war, only he'd never be hungry again. He came home a much weaker man in body and suffered illness until he died but I can't think of a nicer person than he, quiet and loving and easy to talk with. God only knows his hardships he suffered but now he is resting. So yes thank you very, very much for your time, your giving and your love for your country our families.