God Bless our fallen soldiers

[John Prezioso]

I remember when I lived in Seattle, I used to go the veterans hospital often. Something that always struck me was that there was never a bitter man in the bunch. As I would make my way through the hospital, I would encounter hero after hero, and as I talked with them, they would ask me how I was doing, how my wife was, and would always have candy and gifts to give to my son. To say it was a deeply emotional and sobering experience does not even begin to cover it. I never could leave that place without renewed faith in mankind and without tearing up with pride knowing that men like these are my fellow Americans. Hero is an overused term in our time, but these men easily qualify even by the strictest definition.

When I think about what these men and those who fell never to rise again have sacrificed, it strikes me how insufficient the words "Thank You" seem. Nothing any of us can ever do or say can ever measure up to what these men deserve. Yet,it is all I have, so this year, like every year, I reflect on my freedom, get choked up at all of the memorials, and sit and quietly say "Thank You".

Happy Memorial Day everyone.

[Guest]

quote:

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Originally posted by Prez:

I remember when I lived in Seattle, I used to go the veterans hospital often. Something that always struck me was that there was never a bitter man in the bunch. As I would make my way through the hospital, I would encounter hero after hero, and as I talked with them, they would ask me how I was doing, how my wife was, and would always have candy and gifts to give to my son. To say it was a deeply emotional and sobering experience does not even begin to cover it. I never could leave that place without renewed faith in mankind and without tearing up with pride knowing that men like these are my fellow Americans. Hero is an overused term in our time, but these men easily qualify even by the strictest definition.

When I think about what these men and those who fell never to rise again have sacrificed, it strikes me how insufficient the words "Thank You" seem. Nothing any of us can ever do or say can ever measure up to what these men deserve. Yet,it is all I have, so this year, like every year, I reflect on my freedom, get choked up at all of the memorials, and sit and quietly say "Thank You".

Happy Memorial Day everyone.

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Nothing more to be said.....

[Charles Lindsey]

Longest Taps

quote:

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BATH, N.Y. - It began with three haunting notes from a teenage girl. A second bugler, about 100 yards down the road, picked up the tune. And then a third. More than 850 buglers, trumpeters and other horn players fanned out Saturday along 41 miles of roads in rural western New York and performed a cascading rendition of taps to highlight the scarcity of buglers at veterans' funerals.

The 24-note melody started up at Woodlawn National Cemetery in Elmira, overlapped from one instrument to the next as it reverberated through a string of small towns from Painted Post to Campbell to Savona, and closed out nearly three hours later at Bath National Cemetery.

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Edit: Phooey, it changes to a registration page by clicking from here. Just go to Yahoo and put longest taps in the search field. It's #9 for me.

[John Prezioso]

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/11709185.htm

Wow...that was sometihing.