Memorial Day 2010 - Lest We Forget

(click to biggersize it)

As you all know, today is Memorial Day. A day when we pay homage to our fallen heroes from all wars.

I am posting two YouTube videos that touch me deeply. They are both the same song by Trace Atkins (Trace Rocks) but with different videos. They are the best of the best and honors those who deserve the praise.

I posted this one last year, but it is so powerful that it deserves to be posted again. I really like that he takes off his hat in a salute to the Cadets standing behind them. They are the one’s who will be carrying on the defense of our Nation.



This is the same song, but the pictures are ones I have never seen before and is produced by a Cadet in the class of 2012.



I so totally agree that we need to pray for peace. Strongly and often.

But I also know that as long as there are men and women who craves one more dollar, a little more power, a stronger stance in their religion, or wants something someone else has, peace will never be.

Every generation since Adam has had their war or conflict, and I don’t believe this will ever change. Sadly we will loose our young, and if we are not watchful, we will be loosing more than that. That is why we need a strong, well funded and supplied military.

But for today, it is about those who gave their all for what ever reason they were fighting. The Georgia Monument on the Gettysburg battlefield states,
“…We sleep here in obedience;
When duty called, we came;
When country called, we died”

As it is with all our heroes.

Personally, I will be honoring my buddy Dan's friends, the 74 lost with the sinking of my ship, and a wonderful artist, Bobby Kro, who just passed away. He was a Marine who also has a Marine son being deployed for his second tour this month.
My pal, Ed, said in a comment, "Men like this make me embarassed and unworthy to call myself a veteran."

God bless them all and peace for the families they left behind.
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The Battle of Tenaru by Robert Leckie

Memorial Day is set aside to remember and honor those who have made the ultimate sacrifice in all wars fought. I thank the families who raised the caliber of men and women who went in harms way for a bigger cause, and I send you my heartfelt condolences for your loss.

Monday is Memorial Day for our American men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice. In all your festivities this weekend, please take just a second to give a silent prayer of thanks, or just a moment of silence if you do not pray, for those who sacrificed so you can enjoy this day.

Many of you will be posting about this day. This is my Memorial Day contribution:

The HBO series, The Pacific, was based in part on a book by Robert Leckie (Dec. 18, 1920 - Dec 24, 2001) a former Marine of the 1st Division who fought as a machine-gunner in every battle of the Pacific except Okinawa (because he was recovering from a blast concussion received on Peleiu.) This poem was take from his first book written in 1957, ‘Helmet For My Pillow - From Parris Island to the Pacific.’

The Battle of the Tenaru, August 21, 1942
by Robert Leckie

A helmet for my pillow,
A poncho for my bed,
My rifle rests across my chest-
The stars swing overhead.

The whisper of the kunai,
The murmur of the sea,
The sighing palm and night so calm
Betray no enemy.

Hear! river bank so silent
You men who sleep around
That foreign scream across the stream-
Up! Fire at the sound!

Sweeping over the sandspit
That blocks the Tenaru
With Banzai-boast a mushroomed host
Vows to destroy our few.

Into your holes and gunpits!
Kill them with rifles and knives!
Feed them with lead until they are dead-
And widowed are their wives.

Sons of the mothers who gave you
Honor and gift of birth
Strike with the knife till blood and life
Run out upon the earth.

Marines, keep faith with your glory
Keep to your trembling hole.
Intruder feel of Nippon steel
Can't penetrate your soul.

Closing, they charge all howling
Their breasts all targets large.
The gun must shake, the bullets make
A slaughter of their charge.

Red are the flashing tracers,
Yellow the bursting shells.
Hoarse is the cry of men who die
Shrill are the woundeds' yells.

God, how the night reels stricken!
She shrieks with orange spark.
The mortar's lash and cannon's crash
Have crucified the dark.

Falling, the faltering foemen
Beneath our guns lie heaped.
By greenish glare of rocket's flare
We see the harvest reaped.

Now has the first fierce onslaught
Been broken and hammered back.
Hammered and hit, from hole and pit-
We rise up to attack!

Day bursts pale from a gun tube,
The gibbering night has fled.
By light of dawn the foe has drawn
A line behind his dead.

Our tanks clank in behind him,
Our riflemen move out.
Their hearts have met our bayonet-
It's ended wit a shout.

"Cease fire!" -the words go ringing,
Over the heaps of the slain.
The battle's won, the Rising Sun
Lies riddled on the plain.

St. Michael, angel of battle
We praise you to God on high.
The foe you gave was strong and brave
And unafraid to die.

Speak to the Lord for our comrades,
Killed when the battle seemed lost.
They went to meet a bright defeat-
The hero's holocaust.

False is the vaunt of the victor,
Empty our living pride.
For those who fell there is no hell-
Not for the brave who died.
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