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It would be really nice if we could take some of the effort that we use to honor these people who will never see it and used it to help soldiers fighting ptsd or finding ways to keep them out of harms way and unnecessary wars.

 

So you're saying that soldiers who gave their life for this country shouldn't be honored one day a year.

 

Wow.

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Thanks. Hopefully the inclusion of ALL is helpful for those struggling to understand Memorial day. I wonder if those that have gone before can see that they are being memorialized ?...

To me, considerations about the possibility of an afterlife are not critical to honor this day. Because, while it is about those who have had their lives cut short, memorializing them is really for the living. I'm sure you, and many others here, have spent some time today thinking about the folks who had their lives cut short abruptly--the saddest thing, for me, is the idea of all that lost potential. Young people who missed all that the future held for them. What I do on Memorial Day is take a few minutes to remember particularly the (approx) 50 sailors and marines who died in a tragic boat accident in Jan 1977 in Barcelona harbor. I take some special meaning from that PHIBRON and not only because I knew and had gone on liberty with a few of the enlisted guys from the command staff who had been on my ship for the first half of that deployment. It's the added element of honoring that lost potential in the context of my hoping for peace and prosperity for society. Those guys were manning the limes and paid the highest price.

 

It would be really nice if we could take some of the effort that we use to honor these people who will never see it and used it to help soldiers fighting ptsd or finding ways to keep them out of harms way and unnecessary wars.

I guess it is all about how one thinks about it, Michael. This goes towards the complaint I made in the other thread. Memorial Day is about praying for peace, not about celebrating warrior culture. The fact is that the U.S. is currently in the throes of a warrior culture. It isn't surprising because, after all, the U.S. is a major war-mongering nation in the world today. And while we ought to do all we can to help soldiers who have been harmed by our wars--both physically and mentally, it's the latter part of your sentence that really matters today.

 

The way I look at it, and the way the holiday came to be, imo, is that we ought to be reflecting on ways to make this a more peaceful planet. That's how to give the highest meaning to those who have died in service to their nation. Commercial exploitation of the day is fucking tone-deaf but is to be expected from soul-less corporations. Yet, on an individual level, we each have to decide if praying for peace (even secularly) is important enough to be separated out from our post 9-11 celebration of war and warriors. We should be thinking about this, as a subject, for at least one day a year. Today is that day.

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So you're saying that soldiers who gave their life for this country shouldn't be honored one day a year.
 
Wow.


Before these Veterans that Weston mentions become memorialized because they committed suicide.

Weston ; Those Veterans should get help but the money is not going to come from dismantling one holiday. It starts at the top. Who nominated the current Secretary of the VA ? Numerous Veterans get turned away at the door to the VA.

Sorry, I'm stepping off my soapbox now.
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Guys, I don't read Mike's comment as being an either/or disjunctive. And I know he means well. And it's certainly true that those who suffer from PTSD/shell-shock are victims, too. I imagine that for some of them they already feel dead inside and that going through the day-to-day is just going through the motions. When I lived in Connecticut, I used to walk the dog past a house where, in good weather, an older fellow was almost always tinkering around in his garden. I would nod my head, give a brief wave, etc... as one does when you see a person you don't really know but still see regularly. For the longest time he never even acknowledged me beyond a glance. Eventually, after months, he began to nod back but we never had a real conversation. I was chatting with a neighbor one time and he told me that this guy was still suffering from his WWII experiences. So, roughly 40 years after whatever trauma he experienced. Quite sad.

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Homer, well said. It is for benefit of the living. Sometimes it brings out the bad memories as well and clogs my thought process. Names such as Johann Gokool mean nothing to most people but to me, those names take on a whole different meaning on days like these.
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I get a little choked up, too, Numbers. Maybe we ought to go looking for that wild place in Barcelona you mentioned to drown our sorrows. One of my favorite cities, but I never saw that neighborhood! Really enjoyed walking the Ramblas and went up to that old mini-amusement park on top of the hill once.

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So you're saying that soldiers who gave their life for this country shouldn't be honored one day a year.
 
Wow.


They should be honored every day. But what I see mostly on Facebook and twitter etc. is people who want to get credit for honoring someone. Otherwise what's the point. My dead friend will never see the honor. Why not instead honor those who serve by putting them in harms way at only the most necessary time and then giving them the resources they need when they return. These gestures don't do much to improve actual everyday life for veterans.
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It feels like, in a lot of ways people who did the ice bucket challenge and never donated. And even that might have been better because people just weren't aware of the issue. Everyone knows a soldier.

I do agree that it's a positive for the families and I think that's great.
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I get a little choked up, too, Numbers. Maybe we ought to go looking for that wild place in Barcelona you mentioned to drown our sorrows. One of my favorite cities, but I never saw that neighborhood! Really enjoyed walking the Ramblas and went up to that old mini-amusement park on top of the hill once.


Not sure whether you went pre or post Olympics. The show probably doesn't exist anymore but I'm sure there's newer stuff to get in trouble with...

That little place on the hill may have been turned into Olympic village or something.
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Not sure whether you went pre or post Olympics. The show probably doesn't exist anymore but I'm sure there's newer stuff to get in trouble with...

That little place on the hill may have been turned into Olympic village or something.

Pre-Olympics. The statue of Columbus that they spotlighted all the time during Olympics coverage indicated that they had done a lot of work to clean up the harbor area. The neighborhood was a typical waterfront hellhole during my visits. In fact, I and a few pals pissed on that statue--something we tried to do in every port. Pissed on Mussolini in Brindisi, too. Lol. Actually surprised that that statue was still there near the foot of the Appian Way as late as the 70s.

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I was on my phone for those so I apologize if it didn't come out clear. I don't want to downplay the role veterans have played for our country especially those who have lost there lives. But I think that we can do more than just gestures. 


It's all good. We can do better than meaningless gestures and lip service to that segment of our population. Thank you.
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Pre-Olympics. The statue of Columbus that they spotlighted all the time during Olympics coverage indicated that they had done a lot of work to clean up the harbor area. The neighborhood was a typical waterfront hellhole during my visits. In fact, I and a few pals pissed on that statue--something we tried to do in every port. Pissed on Mussolini in Brindisi, too. Lol. Actually surprised that that statue was still there near the foot of the Appian Way as late as the 70s.


I had a friend spend the night in an Italian jail for pissing in public on or near Christmas day. Probably got locked up for thinking Italian cops don't understand English too. He said something like Merry Fucking Christmas you assholes... In near spotless English he was told we will but you won't right before he was stuffed in the police unit. Good times...
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Lol. Serves him right. Stupid, drunk squid stuff--I've done my share! We used to do the pissing on statue/in a fountain thing in pretty much every liberty port we pulled. Closest we ever got to being busted was getting chased away from a fountain in a square by some civilians in some little town on the Cote d'Azur.

 

On a positive side, I walked shore patrol with a French cop in Marseilles. Language barriers and an interesting night. Broke up a fight near the Opera House; settled a dispute from a whore who claimed that a sailor stole her coat. She quieted down once the cop found her coat in a back room. Obvious scam attempt there. The best part was when we (our team was a Marine, myself and the cop) tried to cross a major street to head down a hill into a sleazy looking neighborhood. The cop was very adamant about not going down there--lots of "No, no" and hand gestures. So, we didn't go there. When we got back to the police station at the end of the night, we asked about that with the French cop who acted as liason/coordinator and who also knew English. He spoke to the cop, turned to us and said (more or less), "That's the Algerian neighborhood. We don't go down there much because sometimes we get shot at." Lol.

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