Military, Society, Uncategorized

Memorial Day, The Misunderstood Holiday

Submitted by Charlton Stanley (Otteray Scribe), Guest Blogger

Easter Dogwood
View from Tim’s grave at the National Cemetery
Photo by Charlton Stanley (his father)

Friday I was reading another blog, and was stunned and appalled to read this opening line in a post (emphasis mine):

“For most of us, Memorial Day is a joyous occasion. We may think of idyllic, lazy summer days of childhood, whole months away from school. Our greatest concern might well be the inevitable traffic jams created when large groups of people head for the same destination at the same time.”

Many, including the person who wrote the statement above, mistake Veteran’s Day for Memorial Day. The day does not celebrate the veteran. It is a day of remembrance for those who never had a chance to become a veteran. Veteran’s Day is November 11, formerly called Armistice Day.

Memorial Day was originally known as Decoration Day. The exact origin of the custom of decorating the graves of those who gave all in service to the country is shrouded by the mists of time and folklore. Memorial Day became official when General John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, issued his General Order No. 11 on 5 May 1868. The first official Memorial Day observance was 30 May 1868. On that day, flowers were placed on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery.  Every year until 1971, Memorial Day was observed on May 30. In 1971, the National Holiday Act of 1971 was passed, making Memorial Day part of a three-day weekend.  When Memorial Day became just another long weekend with a day off from work, it began to lose its meaning as a day of remembrance and reflection. The VFW’s official proclamation in 2002 stated in part,

“Changing the date merely to create three-day weekends has undermined the very meaning of the day. No doubt, this has contributed greatly to the general public’s nonchalant observance of Memorial Day.”

In 1999, Senator Dan Inouye introduced a bill to restore the traditional day of observance of Memorial Day back to May 30 instead of “the last Monday in May”. The same year, Representative Gibbons introduced a bill in the house saying the same thing. Both bills were referred to Committee. Every year until his death, Senator Inouye re-introduced the bill. If anyone had the credentials to speak for veterans everywhere, it was Senator Inouye; one of the few members of Congress awarded the Medal of Honor. I hope that one day, Memorial Day will return to the original May 30. Every year that passes, a bit more of the real meaning of the day is lost.

IGTNTLogoRevised-1-2We owe it to the dead to honor their memory. It does not matter the war, the cause, or the politics.  For every one of those marble slabs in the Gardens of Stone, some parent or loved one got that terrible, awful knock on the door.  When I was young, it seemed as if every other house had a gold star in the front window. Those memories are still fresh, even after all those decades. A series has been running on the Daily Kos blog called IGTNT (I Got The News Today). The series honors and remembers those Americans who lost their lives in combat or military operations in the war zone. Their names and pictures are there. Read them and weep for the loved ones left only with memories.

Flowers_of_the_forest_skene_manuscript
Flowres of the Forrest
From the Skene Manuscripts

Shortly after the bloody battle at Flodden Field in 1513, one of the members of Clan Skene composed Flowers of the Forest as a lament for the Scots who perished in that terrible battle. It was probably composed originally for the harp, however; it was quickly adapted for the bagpipes. It was lost for about a century, until it was found in the Skene Manuscripts as “Flowres of the Forrest.” The original pipe tune did not have lyrics. In 1756, Jean Elliot wrote lyrics for the tune.  Piping Flowers of the Forest has become traditional in the UK for military memorial services. The custom has spread to the US, and is often requested. Flowers of the Forest was piped for my son at his service in the National Cemetery. Because of the somber meaning of the lyrics and tune, pipers will not play or practice Flowers of the Forest in public. Public airing of the ancient tune is reserved for remembrance of the dead.

Flowers of the Forest refers to the soldiers. “The flowers of the forest are all wede away,” means they are all withered away, dead. Centuries later, the flowers theme would be reprised when Roy Williamson composed Flower of Scotland, which has become the National Anthem. This is Ronnie Browne singing Jean Elliot’s lyrics on the actual battlefield at Flodden, now peaceful meadowland.

Flowers of the Forest

By Jean Elliot, (1727 – 1805)

I’ve heard them liltin’, at the ewe milkin,’
Lasses a-liltin’ before dawn of day.
Now there’s a moanin’, on ilka green loanin’.
The flowers of the forest are a’ wede away.

As boughts in the mornin’, nae blithe lads are scornin’,
Lasses are lonely and dowie and wae.
Nae daffin’, nae gabbin’, but sighin’ and sobbin’,
Ilk ane lifts her leglin, and hies her away.

At e’en in the gloamin’, nae swankies are roamin’,
‘Mang stacks wi’ the lasses at bogle to play.
But ilk maid sits drearie, lamentin’ her dearie,
The flowers of the forest are a’ wede away.

In har’st at the shearin’ nae youths now are jeerin’
Bandsters are runkled, and lyart, or grey.
At fair or at preachin’, nae wooin’, nae fleecin’,
The flowers of the forest are a’ wede away.

Dool for the order sent our lads to the Border,
the English for ance by guile wan the day.
The flowers of the forest, that fought aye the foremost,
The prime of our land lie cauld in the clay.

We’ll hae nae mair liltin’, at the ewe milkin’,
Women and bairns are dowie and wae.
Sighin’ and moanin’ on ilka green loanin’,
The flowers of the forest are all wede away.

Major Michael Davis O'Donnell
Major Michael O’Donnell

Vietnam had its iconic poems, tunes and laments as well. One of the more famous poems was by a helicopter pilot; Major Michael Davis O’Donnell.  This was written on New Year’s Day, 1970 at Dak To. Major O’Donnell was killed three months later when his helicopter was shot down with twelve souls aboard. His helicopter was hit by ground fire while rescuing troops who had come under heavy fire.

By Major Michael Davis O’Donnell

If you are able, save them a place inside you,
And save one backward glance when you are leaving,
for the places they can no longer go.

Be not ashamed to say you loved them,
though you may, or may not have always.
Take what they have left, and what they have
taught you with their dying, and keep it as your own.

And in that time that when men decide, and feel safe,
to call the war insane, take one moment,
to embrace these gentle heroes you left behind.

There are many poems, essays and songs appropriate for Memorial Day, and for Memorial Day weekend. Some have special meaning for me. Joe Kilna MacKenzie wrote Sgt. MacKenzie in memory of his grandfather, Sgt. Charles Stuart MacKenzie of the Seaforth Highlanders. Joe lost his own battle with cancer in 2009.

About his grandfather, Joe wrote:

“To the best of my knowledge, and taken from reports of the returning soldiers, one of his close friends fell, badly wounded. Charles stood his ground and fought until he was overcome and died from bayonet wounds. On that day, my great grandmother and my grandmother were sitting at the fire when the picture fell from the wall. My great grandmother looked, and said to my grandmother “Oh, my bonnie Charlie’s dead”. Sure enough, a few days passed, and the local policeman brought the news – that Sgt. Charles Stuart MacKenzie had been killed in action. This same picture now hangs above my fireplace. A few years back my wife Christine died of cancer, and in my grief, I looked at his picture to ask what gave him the strength to go on. It was then, in my mind, that I saw him lying on the field and wondered what his final thoughts were. The words and music just appeared into my head. I believe the men and woman like yourself who are prepared to stand their ground for their family – for their friends – and for their country; deserve to be remembered, respected and honoured. “Sgt. MacKenzie”, is my very small tribute to them.”

Sgt. MacKenzie was featured in the soundtrack of the movie, We Were Soldiers. The cover photo in the video is Sergeant MacKenzie.

Eric Bogle wrote several songs about the futility and waste of war, two of the most famous being Green Fields of France, and The Band Played Waltzing Matilda.  Lesser known is My Youngest Son Came Home Today. Eric says Mary Black, as a woman and mother, sings it far better than he ever could. Here is Mary Black with My Youngest Son Came Home Today.

Memorial Day is for remembering and honoring those who died in the service of their country. Please share your own special remembrances, poems or songs.

175 thoughts on “Memorial Day, The Misunderstood Holiday”

  2. ‘By the way that he came, by the same he will return, and he will not come to this city,’ declares the LORD.35‘For I will defend this city to save it for My own sake and for My servant David’s sake.’”~Isaiah 37:27
    ——————
    It is Faith that is deeper….. than the manipulators, than armies, than liars, than politics, than want, than fear. Faith is Ariadne’s thread into the Unknown……the World will always be Whole, no matter how many walls and borders and guns and races and liars who stick their heads above the crowd….

  3. @Dredd,

    As you no doubt realize, the notorious “we’re an empire now,” quote that you cited comes from “Without a Doubt,” by Ron Suskind, The New York Times Magazine, October 17, 2004. But my favorite excerpt comes somewhat later in the piece and involves a telling insight into the cynical, all-consuming public relations marketing of Dubya the Dimwit as “common man,” “salt-of-the-earth,” “just like you and me” bumpkin, and “saved” Cristian wastrel on crusade against the “librul commies” and heretical Isamist hordes. To wit:

    The crowd went wild … when the president finally arrived and gave his stump speech. There were Bush’s periodic stumbles and gaffes, but for the followers of the faith-based president, that was just fine. They got it — and “it” was the faith.

    And for those who don’t get it? That was explained to me in late 2002 by Mark McKinnon, a longtime senior media adviser to Bush, who now runs his own consulting firm and helps the president. He started by challenging me. “You think he’s an idiot, don’t you?” I said, no, I didn’t. “No, you do, all of you do, up and down the West Coast, the East Coast, a few blocks in southern Manhattan called Wall Street. Let me clue you in. We don’t care. You see, you’re outnumbered 2 to 1 by folks in the big, wide middle of America, busy working people who don’t read The New York Times or Washington Post or The L.A. Times. And you know what they like? They like the way he walks and the way he points, the way he exudes confidence. They have faith in him. And when you attack him for his malaprops, his jumbled syntax, it’s good for us. Because you know what those folks don’t like? They don’t like you!” In this instance, the final “you,” of course, meant the entire reality-based community.

    In reading that, I must admit I had a difficult time trying to picture Deputy Dubya the AWOL Texas Air National Guardsman “walking” and “pointing” and “exuding confidence.” Almost immediately a poetic stanza began forming itself in my mind:

    They like the way he “points,” they say.
    They like the way he “walks,”
    despite the fact that no one can
    decipher how he talks.
    Yet when he mimics “standing tall,”
    the stupid Boobie gawks.

    It became nauseatingly clear to me then, that whatever the sub-linguistic yokels in Red State America meant by “faith,” it portended nothing but disaster for my country and the Muslim middle east. Whoever considers the United States a “modern” country has no idea of the anthropological depths of regression it has yet to plumb. Going backwards, now. And fast.

  4. Some sobering thoughts from Sheldon Wolin’s Democracy, Inc.: managed democracy and the specter of inverted totalitarianism:

    “At present the national government is embarked upon a war in which our leaders first deceived the public about the threat to the nation and then followed a course of action that consistently evaded and violated constitutional limitations. Nonetheless, its actions and official justifications are in certain important respects compatible with some of the broad aims of some of the Founders of our constitution. The point is not whether the Founders had a totalitarian vision, but rather what forms of power they were bent on encouraging and what forms they were determined to check. What did they hope for and what did they fear?

    The main hope of the framers of the Constitution was to establish a strong central government, not one hobbled at every turn by an intrusive citizenry or challenged by the several ‘sovereign’ states. They professed to be choosing a republic, but is is closer to the truth to say that they were focused upon establishing a system of national power to replace what they considered the hopelessly ineffectual system of decentralized powers under the Articles of Confederation.

    The new system, with its emphasis upon a strong executive, an indirectly elected Senate composed (it was hoped) of the educated and wealthy, and an appointed Supreme Court also represented the fears of the Founders. Theirs was a counterrevolution against not only the system of politics that had led to the revolution against Britain but against the democratic tendencies and populist outbreaks that had persisted from the end of the seventeenth century and throughout the eighteenth.”

    And, the brutal bottom line regarding the regular recrudescence of republican — i.e., corporate — counterrevolution built into the “original” system and ceaselessly seeking to undermine, reverse, and eliminate every vestige of progress made by the common working people of America:

    “The American political system was not born a democracy, but born with a bias against democracy. It was constructed by those who were either skeptical about democracy or hostile to it. The republic existed for three-quarters of a century before formal slavery was ended; another hundred years before black Americans were assured of their voting rights. Only in the twentieth century were women guaranteed the vote and trade unions the right to bargain collectively. In none of these instances has victory been complete: women still lack full equality, racism persists, and the destruction of the remnants of trade unions remains a goal of corporate strategies. Far from being innate, democracy in America has gone against the grain, against the very forms by which the political and economic power of the country has been and continues to be ordered.”

    A corporate coup d’etat has indeed occurred, and the United States may actually now find itself politically closer to the end of the eighteenth century than to the beginning of the twenty-first. Now ask some working man or woman to fight and die for that.

  5. Respect for elder statesmen who have lived for us:

    The Father of the American Constitution said:

    “Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied: and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manners and of morals, engendered by both. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare. Those truths are well established.”

    (James Madison, 1795).

    Let’s analyze that.

    “Of all the enemies to public liberty” ,,, so there are how many enemies of the freedom of the public? Many?

    “War is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded” … so war is the top dog when it comes to being an enemy of public freedom?

    Is war your enemy, then, or via Stockholm Syndrome do you justify it, culture it, and let it grow to snuff out public freedom while claiming that war is what gives us freedom?

    Why is it the worst enemy of freedom? “because it comprises and develops the germ of every other [threat to public freedom].”

    It is comprised or made of all the other enemies to public freedom, and it develops the germs to infect so as to remove public freedom. And why do we have, then, more soldiers in marching bands (football games, etc.) than there are diplomats and statesmen in the foreign service of the State Department?

    The political father, also a president, congressman, cabinet member, and author of the Bill of Rights, indicated that war is not content to just take public freedoms, it builds allies to help it spread until all public freedom is gone. Are you an ally?

    Here is how it technically works: “War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.”

    As a “loving parent”, war likes to produce armies by using your money even though you do not want the war. Too bad, that freedom to speak out and say “I am not going to give my life for the plunder barons on Wall Street, is gone.” One down, the remainder to go.

    “In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied:”

    Pomp and circumstance, blowing red, white, and blue smoke up the jingo of those hungry jingoists; hungry for some glory at the expense of public freedom while telling the public: “I gave you your freedom.” Liars!

    “In war, too, … all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people.”

    War produces all the means of seducing the minds (propaganda anyone), which are added to standing armies to subdue the force or power of the people, while telling them their freedom is being secured. Liars!

    Dazed, confused, and powerless to exercise rights, what is left but to submit to the defeat of freedom while calling it something else?

    “The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war” … malignant to the point of deliberate and wrongful inequality, fraud upon the public … “gosh that could never happen here cause we war for your freedom.” Liars!

    The “degeneracy of manners and of morals” puts icing on the warmonger cake, and … listen … drum roll, the great payoff:

    “No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.” Not even an exceptional nation?

    The jingoist warmonger philosophy has an answer for that one too:

    “”We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.””

    (Karl Christian Rove). “We” are an empire, yeah, that’s the ticket, that is the source of our freedom … now move along.

  6. Mike Spindell 1, May 27, 2013 at 6:14 pm

    Stockholm Syndrome? You’re coming unglued.
    ======================================
    Exactly right.

    The syndrome is a bond, a glue, which can only become unglued by rejecting the chains offered by the captive.

    America’s Stockholm Syndrome

    America’s Stockholm Syndrome (Daily Kos)

    The public has been against the war against terror but the warmongers of the Wartocracy do not care.

    The only thing to do as a faithful jingoist is to join in the festivities that glorify war, hegemony, and imperialism.

    Sprinkled with American exceptionalism.

    It is dead wrong:

    “We are divided, in America, into two classes: The Tories on one side, a class of citizens who were raised to believe that the whole of this country was created for their sole benefit, and on the other side, the other 99 per cent of us, the soldier class, the class from which all of you soldiers came. That class hasn’t any privileges except to die when the Tories tell them. Every war that we have ever had was gotten up by that class. They do all the beating of the drums. Away the rest of us go. When we leave, you know what happens. We march down the street with all the Sears-Roebuck soldiers standing on the sidewalk, all the dollar-a-year men with spurs, all the patriots who call themselves patriots, square-legged women in uniforms making Liberty Loan speeches. They promise you. You go down the street and they ring all the church bells. Promise you the sun, the moon, the stars and the earth,–anything to save them. Off you go. Then the looting commences while you are doing the fighting. This last [WW I] war made over 6,000 millionaires. Today those fellows won’t help pay the bill.”

    (General Smedley Butler, Foreign Service Magazine, Dec. 1933, emphasis added). Everyone has the right to choose their own syndrome.

    Mine is to tell the 1% to stick it where freedom don’t shine.

  7. Remembering twelve years of U.S. military briefings in Iraq and Afghanistan (formerly known in Saigon as “The Five O’Clock Follies”) predicting “signs of fragile progress” real soon now — or, perhaps in twenty years.

    The Solipsistic Sprouting of “Green Shoots”

    We lost the day we started this disaster.
    We win the day we stop this “war” so dumb.
    If not, we’ll simply spiral down much faster
    to depths of stupid no one sane can plumb.

    Our generals claim powers to intuit
    a time to come when they will surely know
    just what they plan to do and how they’ll do it
    although they have no evidence to show.

    They can’t say what the fighting ever brings us,
    but still they say we’ll fight for endless years.
    This hopeful hopeless tune they daily sing us,
    so as to keep alive our needless fears

    The Taliban have not one plane to fly in,
    Nor boat to paddle over oceans vast.
    So what they’ll launch from where to keep us cryin’
    remains a mystery designed to last.

    We’ve long embraced the tactics of dissembling:
    the uttering of vapid empty noise
    which seems to not have left the “bad guys” trembling
    or shocked and awed by all our high-tech toys.

    But soon we’ll send more drones to shoot mosquitoes
    while dying of malaria ourselves,
    which comforts those who sell the troops burritos
    and other fast-food junk from off their shelves.

    It seems we’ve scared our own selves nearly shitless
    Surrendering all semblance of control
    To those who see us terrified and witless
    Each time themselves as saviors they extol

    We’ve let some word-like noises pass for meaning,
    and written spell-marks that transcribe no thought.
    Our rulers sell us symbols void of meaning.
    They’ve offered nothing — which we’ve gladly bought

    Michael Murry, “The Misfortune Teller,” copyright 2013

    .

  8. Woosty’s still a Cat 1, May 28, 2013 at 11:05 am
    __________________________________________
    Cats and bunnies walk around in my back yard.

  9. Happy National Amnesia Day (or, Folly Lurches Onward!)

    A Vicious Circle Villanelle
    (after the style of Dylan Thomas’ “Do not go gentle into that good night”)

    Once folly starts, it cannot ever cease.
    The perpetrators of the crime command:
    More dying, please! We can’t afford the peace!

    Their troubled foreheads, wrinkles deeply crease
    With consequences that they never planned.
    Once folly starts, it cannot ever cease.

    No logic brings intelligent release.
    The unforced errors earn no reprimand.
    More dying, please! We can’t afford the peace!

    The mounting costs leave few sheep fit to fleece.
    Who next will pay the ransom on demand?
    Once folly starts, it cannot ever cease.

    Yet still the sophists ladle on the grease:
    Those ancient fallacies the flames have fanned.
    More dying, please! We can’t afford the peace!

    The lies add up in thousands dead apiece.
    The questions begged, both trivial and bland:
    Once folly starts, it cannot ever cease?
    More dying, please? We can’t afford the peace?

    Michael Murry, “The Misfortune Teller,” Copyright 2008

  10. I used to tell the memories to go away and leave me alone. But they refused. They come and go when they want. They have their own schedule. So now — at my observant and loving wife’s suggestion — I just try to put them to work. Hence:

    Don’t You Know We’re at AUMF?
    (dedicated to the memory of my fellow citizen Abdulrahman al-Awlaki)

    He’ll only kill some Muslims,
    not us, he — sort of — says;
    unless we travel overseas,
    in which case, when he slays
    on purpose or by accident,
    no law on earth delays
    or otherwise impedes our Prince
    who’s found that killing pays,
    although the Senator complains
    but then his crimes OKs.

    Michael Murry, The Misfortune Teller, Copyright 2013

    In other words, President Obama: “How many accidental homicides do you get to claim before you must restrict yourself to only the murders you actually intend to commit?”

  12. The problem with your assertion is that you define “hate” and “evil” as you will, and so does everyone else.

    Thus, the cacophony of self-authentication results.~ Dredd
    ————————————-
    Thank you for this. I so agree.

    There is a humongously important difference between self-authentication and self-actualization.

    And the problem with evil is that it is born of fear, False Evidence Appearing Real……

  14. Thoughts About Memorial Day (To Honor Those Who Have Died, We Must Be the Peace We want to See in the World)

    by Michael T. McPhearson

    I believe the best way to honor those who have died in war, both combatants and civilians, is to work to abolish war. We must end the killing and suffering caused by war. This sounds idealistic because it is.

    Idealism is one if the traits of humanity that sets us apart from the beast of nature. Striving for a higher purpose and looking to a higher calling brings out the best in us. If we truly want to honor those who died we must step up in an effort to ensure their death is not simply because we are too scared and selfish to take up the challenge to be better people.

    This Memorial Day, after you eat, catch a sale, honor the dead at a memorial or leave flowers for a fallen solider; please take some time to reflect on what you can do to make the world more peaceful at home and abroad. Then go out and be the peace you want to see in the world.

    (Michael T. McPhearson, a native of Fayetteville North Carolina was a field artillery officer in the 24th Mechanized Infantry Division during Desert Shield /Desert Storm, also known as Gulf War I. Michael joined the Army Reserve 1981 as an enlisted soldier at the age of 17 and attended basic training the summer between his junior and senior high school years. He is a ROTC graduate of Campbell University in Buies Creek, North Carolina. His military career includes 6 years of reserve service and 5 years active duty service. He separated from active duty in 1992 as a Captain. Now living in Newark, New Jersey, Michael is currently the National Coordinator for United for Peace and Justice. He is a former Executive Director of Veterans For Peace. His volunteer social and economic justice activist work includes membership in Veterans For Peace, the Newark based People’s Organization for Progress, Military Families Speak Out, the American Civil Liberties Union and the former coordinating committee member for the Bring Them Home Now campaign against the U.S. occupation of Iraq and Secretary of the Saint Louis Branch of the NAACP. Michael is the publisher of the McPhearsonReport.com. Michael’s son joined the Army in January 2004 and served one tour in Iraq. He separated from the military in 2007. In December of 2003 Michael returned to Iraq as part of a peace delegation to examine the state of the occupation firsthand. He has also traveled widely within the United States and to Istanbul Turkey and Bologna Italy as a speaker on the U.S. peace movement and world peace.)

    http://www.mcphearsonreport.com/2013/05/thoughts-about-memorial-day-to-honor-those-who-have-died-we-must-challenge-ourselves/

  16. @bettykath,

    Thank you for your kind remarks.

    I’ll have more to say about this as time permits, but for now you can peruse all you might possibly want of poetry as cheap Do-It-Yourself psychotherapy (for delayed-onset PTSD) at http://themisfortuneteller.com/Verse.html. Any comments you can direct to m_r_murry [at] themisfortuneteller.com.

    As the famed psychoanalyst Carl Jung said: “Only the wounded physician heals.”

  17. @Dredd,

    Regardless of whatever else you may have posted in this thread, I thank you for that music video of The Fuggs.

    Back in 1967 when I served aboard the submarine tender U.S.S. Sperry (moored at Ballast Point near San Diego), a shipmate of mine rented a dilapidated houseboat at a nearby marina. After knocking off ships work for the day (on evenings when we didn’t have to stand watch), we would head on over to our little sanctuary, put on civilian clothes, grab a cold beer from the fridge, turn on the TV tube, and fire up the phonograph and stereo. Usually, we found this very relaxing.

    Whenever President Lyndon Johnson would appear on the news, however, my friend would turn down the volume on the TV and put on our favorite album by The Fuggs. Then, with Johnson’s lying lips flapping silently at us, swearing that he really did feel especially bad about getting so many of our friends killed for nothing halfway around the world in some nameless swamp or jungle, we would kick back, swill our cold beers, and enjoy a rousing refrain from the stereo, screaming:

    NOTHING! NOTHING! NOTHING! NOTHING!

    And we hadn’t even lived to see President Richard Nixon yet.

    Thanks again for the memories.

  18. Some people wonder about love hate relationships with warmongering authoritarians.

    And some don’t.

    Each to his or her own room.
    —————————————————
    It’s their culture. I heard that from an IRS manager in Chicago. I didn’t agree.

  19. bettykath 1, May 27, 2013 at 1:42 pm

    http://nobelwomensinitiative.org/our-blogs/women-beyond-war/

    The Nobel Women’s Initiative’s fourth biennial conference, Moving Beyond Militarism & War: Women-driven solutions for a nonviolent world, will be hosted in Belfast by Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire and five Laureates of the Nobel Women’s Initiative. They will be joined by over 80 influential activists, academics, and decision makers from across the globe whose work focuses on ending militarism and war.
    …
    =====================================
    I advocate that half of all official offices be held by women.

    Some folks here like all or part of scriptures, which has some interesting things to say in that regard:

    …
    Out in the open wisdom calls aloud,
    she raises her voice in the public square;
    on top of the wall she cries out,
    at the city gate she makes her speech
    …

    (proverbs one).

  20. Mike Spindell 1, May 27, 2013 at 12:53 pm

    Dredd,

    I credited you with the capability of self awareness and introspection, spparently I over estimated.

    Darren Smith 1, May 27, 2013 at 1:05 pm

    Mike:

    Dredd now ranks equally with the westboro baptist church in respectability
    ======================================
    Get a room with a view (of more than a graveyard as your yardstick of life).

    Severe Stockholm syndrome arises when it is least expected:

    The Stockholm Syndrome is a curious psychological fact that many people who are abused on in hostage situations begin to side with their captors or with those who abuse and victimize them. It is called the Stockholm Syndrome because of a famous hostage case that took place in Stockholm, Sweden, in which the victim actually defended her captors in court, much to everyone’s surprise.

    While it is not fully understood, it is known to affect many who have been hostages, raped, tortured or abused in various ways.
    …
    The Stockholm Syndrome seems to occur more often in the following situations:

    1. Overwhelming threat to one’s life and the possibility that the threat may actually be carried out.

    2. No perceived way out of the situation.

    3. No other perspective possible. In other words, the person is often cut off from the outside world or other, more sane perspectives.

    These facts can help us explain or understand what may occur with Stockholm Syndrome.

    One explanation of the Stockholm Syndrome is that the person reverts to very early childhood responses in the face of overwhelming stress and danger. One of these responses is to attach oneself emotionally to the strongest person who is nearby. In this case, that person would be the victim’s captors, or a rapist, or an abusive parent, perhaps. This attachment is apparently an innate response of a baby that is designed to protect the baby’s life and assure its survival.

    Another theory that I prefer is that the horror of the hostage situation, rape, torture or abuse is so abhorrent to the person that a switch takes place in the mind in order to make it less horrible. That switch is that the person rationalizes that the situation is not that bad, and that the abuser, torturer or rapist is actually their friend and that all is well.

    (Lawrence Wilson, MD). Some people wonder about love hate relationships with warmongering authoritarians.

    And some don’t.

    Each to his or her own room.

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