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"For those that will fight for
it....Freedom...has a flavor the protected shall never know".
L/Cpl Edwin L. Craft, B Co. 3rd AT's,
Khe Sahn Combat Base, February 1968
Veterans day was set aside to
honor all men  and women who ever put on the uniform of their country...it was to honor and thank them for their service to this great
Nation...for most it is just a three day weekend but for a vast majority of others Veterans Day along with Memorial Day is
everyday...For who can ever forget our comrades ???
This Veterans Day will mark the
25th Anniverssay of the building of the VietNam Wall down at the capitol...58,000 plus of names of men who gave their last full measure fighting for freedom
for the likes of you and me...
They were closer then brothers...they were family in every
sense and they would lay down their life for that of another...They  shared their school days...their friends and their girls and their families...and they shared a bond that can never
be broken...
They shared their deepest emotions to complete strangers...their
fears and joy...their tears and their sorrow...their dreams and their nightmares...their hopes and desires...
Unlike other wars the Nam Vet came home to a land he did not know anymore...we we drugies...baby killers...mass murders and more... we were spat on and shuned by our
fellow Americans...our childhood was left in the jungles and rice paddies of Nam...
It left too many a Nam Vet with a bad taste in our mouths
that stayed there for thirty years  and more...and after all this and
especially with
our troops now in Iraq and Afgan dying each day...losing their limbs day and night...some person or persons went to the Nam
Wall one night and poured some type of acid solution in the granite panels eating the Names away...
How low can a human being be...odds are they never
served nor did the loved ones around them...To those who do these things I say to you...Be prepared when you meet your maker
for you will surely burn in Hell.
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Vietnam War Memorial Defaced
"Who ever did this, if they were
trying to enrage the Vietnam Veterans, they did," said Riley. "We have been stomped on and ridiculed and spit on simply because
we went when our nation called. It wasn't that we are pro war -- when the nation called we went."
Col. Harry G. Riley
I am only one but still
I am one.
I cannot do everything, but still I can do something. I will not refuse to do the
something I can do.
~Helen Keller
As the liquid ran down
the Wall it ate the names till some disappeared...
We are so concerned with security
and protection from our enemys that just maybe the enemy is us...
Who ever did this is a coward...a
nothing...You destroy that which you can never understand.
"I just can't image that this was
an organized activity or a conspiracy involving more than one deranged person, or that anyone would have done this to score
political points for their cause -- it would have just the opposite effect."
Jan Scruggs
Scruggs who is also founder and president
of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund said that there is a belief that the recent vandalism was motivated by "MoveOn.org type
of people" but he hopes that no one is accusing them at this point.
"I just can't image that this was an organized
activity or a conspiracy involving more than one deranged person, or that anyone would have done this to score political points
for their cause"
"While it is unclear what transpired,
we are heartened by the response of the veterans' community and the general public. After 25 years, their connection to The
Wall remains as strong as ever, and we appreciate that"
The surest way to prevent further
vandalism to our memorials is to expose the deeds of those who defaced the Vietnam Memorial. Ignoring such incidents will
only insure that further acts of desecration will follow.
More than 4 million people visit
the memorial each year. This year marks the 25th anniversary of the wall, which is inscribed with the names of 58,249 veterans.
This is so much more then just a wall with names
on it...it is a scared place to millions and a healing wall to millions more...Who ever did this....Shame...Shame...Shame
on you...you will pay at some point and pay deeply...
The outrage in the veteran community
is palpable. In apparent fear of vets’ reaction, some who sympathize with the anti-war group ANSWER (which is coordinating
this weekend’s protests) have issued bogus news releases stating that there was no damage to The Wall.
The punishment for vandalizing
our war Hero's Monumnets should be either life in prison or banashment from America. I would love to deport those ANSWER scum
to be starving wage slaves in China or Cuba and let them see just how wonderful life is in a communist paradise. The "paradise"
that we would be living in if not for the Heroes on that wall.
Tim, Fayetteville, NC
It is hard to figure who did this
despicable act, but they will be found out. There is only One Who knows the hearts of men and why they do what they do. He
will be their Judge and Jury in the final days of this earth's existence
Kathy, CO
The heroes whose names are
on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial sacrificed their lives so cowards like ANSWER can enjoy free life in our great country. Vietnam
veterans came home to a welcome that was less than enthusiastic. Now veterans, their families and friends have to suffer again
because of criminal actions by members of a fifth column club. I hope the perps are brought to swift justice.
Susan, Eagle River, Alaska
As a veteran who served after Viet
Nam, I know many of the brave patriots who did serve in Nam. These patriots were treated wrong when they returned home, and
are being treated wrong still.
Pastor Ed Boston, Hope, IN
"The United States Park Police
is investigating the matter. Until this investigation is completed, it is premature to speculate whether any intentional act
was committed," is the official statement.
Desecrating a Veterans Memorial is not a form
of Free Speech. It should be a federal crime punishable with jail time.
What do you think?
Click here to: EMAIL YOUR CONGRESSMEN http://www.house.gov/writerep/
Click here to: EMAIL YOUR SENATORS http://www.senate.gov/general/
TO ALL WHO SERVED PAST PRESENT
AND FUTURE....THANK YOU MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS...YOU ARE FOREVER IN MY HEART...GOD SPEED...
Freedom, Even from Fear Remembering the special sacrifices of our veterans.
by Victor Davis Hanson
National
Review Online
A civilization is won or lost by those who fight to protect it — and
judged as deserving by the gratitude offered to its soldiers by those who were saved. Afghanistan and Iraq remind us that
there are now Americans in battle in the tradition of 1776, 1864, 1918, or 1944. But are we, the public, still cognizant of
their sacrifice as our forefathers once were?
This Veterans Day we should worry that we have not passed to the
next generation proper commemoration — or even knowledge — of Saratoga, Shiloh, St. Mihiel, Metz, Chosun, or Hue.
In part, the culprit is our own madcap lives. We are so wired with blackberries or glued to play stations, that we don’t
inquire much about the fields of white crosses — and their anonymous dead — that each year, for a blink, appear
on our Veterans Day television screens.
When in Europe we don’t pay our respects at the American
cemetery at Hamm. Indeed, we know an American battle only to the degree it has been the rare topic of a recent film. Thanks
to Saving Private Ryan there is still a D-Day among our youth.
Politically correct history has also made
us indifferent to the sacrifice of the soldier. The Civil War, we are sometimes told, was not really over slavery anyway.
The Great War was unnecessary infighting among European aristocracies. World War II is now as much the Japanese Internment,
Rosy the Riveter, and Hiroshima, as saving Europe and Asia from a racist slavery at places like Falaise and Tarawa. Does anyone
make the connection between a Samsung television or Kia in our showrooms with the bloody see-saw struggles for Seoul? Why
is a Noriega in jail, why are Milosevic and Saddam bad memories, and why are men walking without beards in Kabul?
What American from Tulare or Lansing died for all that — and the larger notion that dictators were to
be fought and defeated far away, rather than here at home? Do we still appreciate that our soldiers, so many of whom have
perished to keep us free — and yet also freed a defeated enemy as well from a Hitler, or Tojo, or the Taliban —
knowing that had they failed our enemies, would not be so magnanimous?
In our sophistication, perhaps too we think we
should have evolved beyond war, the nature of man at last changed for good through greater education, affluence, and experience.
Commemorating war’s toll, then, for some, may be like recalling cancer — as if the oncologist and soldier alike
somehow are tainted by the respective horror of what they must do.
Or is the problem that our military
has become so adept — or so small a percentage of the population — that we are only vaguely cognizant of far-off
places like Basra, Bosnia, Grenada, Kandahar, Kosovo, Lebanon, Mogadishu, or Panama — battlefields where someone else
in the military did something for some apparently necessary reason? Most Americans have little clue whether any of our own
died the last twenty years in Panama or were lost in Mogadishu. Or if so, how and why?
We should remember on
this Veterans Day that some very young people — with long futures, in the prime of health, and at the center of their
families — died for the rest of us. They lost their lives not just for us to watch an OJ outburst in Vegas or American
Idol, but for the idea that we — most often not so young, not so hale, and not with such bright futures as our soldiers
— could be free at their expense; free, not merely from being conquered or enslaved, but free from the very thought
of it.
©2007 Victor Davis Hanson
IF YOU SPEAK ENGLISH...THANK A VET
THE INFANTRYMAN
 "I was that which others cared not to be. I went where others feared to go and did what others failed to do. I asked nothing
from those that gave nothing. And, reluctantly, accepted the thought of eternal loneliness-should I fail. I have seen the
face of terror, felt the chill of fear, warmed to the touch of love. I have hoped, pained, cried. But foremost, lived in times
others would say best forgotten. At the very least, in later days, I will be able to say with greatest pride, that I was indeed
a Soldier".
Anonymous
"The willingness with which our
young people are likely to serve in any war,no matter how justified,shall be directly porportional as to how they percive
the Veterans of earlier wars were treated and Appreciated by their nation...
George Washington
Since before the Crusades men have been fighting
and killing each other merely
because they were different then each
other...a real primative thought right...Though wars are started for many stupid reasons this is the one that boggles my mind...Their
God tells them to kill you and your God while your God is telling you to kill them and their God...sound crazy...that's because
it is...
There is no God that would want all this death...misery...suffering...hate
and violence and if there is he is no God...how many men have shed their blood for their belief and way of life...how
many more will die...
At present we are engaged in
a war that has no end...we fight an enemy that has no country...an enemy that wants to die a myrtar and bring great honor
to their family...they have no respect for life what so ever...
This country and it's flag has always been a symbol...a
hope to those oppressed and we must continue to do so if a peaceful world is ever to be...We are after all Americans...
Those who carved out this Nation did know what they were and what we...America
should be...Those who shed their blood and gave their all in past wars set the standards of what we are all about...We must
continue on the path they led us to...It is a path of great Pride and Courage...
NEVER AGAIN WILL AMERICA
TURN HER BACK ON HER HONORABLE MILITARY AND VETERANS.
"Never again will one generation
 of veterans abandon another."
Tom Holmann
Vietnam Veterans of America
California State Council
"It takes twenty years or more
of peace to make a man;
it takes only twenty seconds of war to destroy him."
Iraq
There have been 4,162 coalition deaths 3,859 Americans, two Australians, 171 Britons, 13 Bulgarians,
one Czech, seven Danes, two Dutch, two Estonians, one Fijian, one Hungarian, 33 Italians, one Kazakh, one Korean, three Latvian,
22 Poles, three Romanians, five Salvadoran, four Slovaks, 11 Spaniards, two Thai and 18 Ukrainians -- in the war in Iraq as
of November 12
Afghanistan
There have been 719 coalition deaths
-- 460 Americans, three Australians, 83 Britons, 71 Canadians, one Czech, seven Danes, 12 Dutch, two Estonians, one Finn,
12 French, 22 Germans, nine Italians, three Norwegians, one Pole, one Portuguese, five Romanians, one South Korean, 23 Spaniards,
two Swedes -- in the war on terror as of November 12, 2007
In doing what we ought, we deserve
no praise, because it is our duty.
Saint Aurelius Augustine
TO ALL THAT HAVE SERVED AND SACRIFICED
FOR THIS GREAT NATION...I SALUTE ALL OF YOU AND YOUR FAMILIES...THERE ARE NO FINER...GOD SPEED...
MORT
1st Cav
www.letssaythanks.com
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