Military

Happy Memorial Day

Happy Memorial Day to everyone and a thanks to all of those who have sacrificed for our nation.  On this day, I often think of my late father, Jack Turley, who served in the Pacific in the Navy during World War II.  My grandfather Ed Turley served in World War I with the Fighting Irish out of New York and New Jersey. I hope everyone has a chance to spend time with their families and friends today.

We are grilling outside in the backyard with friends and family, including a close friend visiting from Chicago.  Ribs, burgers, and dogs. Nothing fancy just the ultimate comfort food.

Have a great weekend.

25 thoughts on “Happy Memorial Day”

  1. Jonathan: Yesterday was Memorial Day–a day to honor those who fought and died in America’s wars. Except for WW11 I think those who fought in other wars, like Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq, died needlessly. George W. Bush lied to the American people to get us into the Iraq war. There were no “weapons of mass destruction”. Now we recognize that threats to our freedom don’t always come from foreign actors. They come from violent right-wing elements in this country who tried to overthrow our democratic institutions on Jan. 6–spurred on by the President of the US. Most of the GOP still believes the 2020 election was “stolen”. Republican Senators have refused to vote for a Jan. Commission to investigate and hold accountable those who instigated and supported Trump’s attempted coup d’etat. One Republican who does not agree with the GOP consensus is Pete Mejier (R-Mich), a Iraq war veteran, who said yesterday about Memorial Day: “And then there are those who take this sacrifice for granted, waxing patriotic, salivating for civil war. Claiming they need to destroy the Republic in order to save it in the ultimate betrayal…” One of those “salivating for civil war” is Ret. Gen. Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security, who lied to Congress but was pardoned by Trump. Flynn thinks the US should follow the example of Myanmar and stage a military coup. Flynn, who should be in prison, now goes around the country calling for civil war. This is why many think that had the US military leadership supported the commander-in-chief’s insurrection we might now be under a military dictatorship. That’s frightening! .

  2. Whenever I see the “Iwo Jima Flag Raising” I am forced to remember that “Indian” actor who played Ira Hayes’.
    Iwo was raised at least two times and the Ira Hayes’s hands are not touching the flagpole.
    Sic Transit Gloria.Mundi
    Tthus passes the glory of the world.

  3. ‘Taking a moment this Memorial Day to remember the sacrifices of the members of Congress who were temporarily inconvenienced on January 6 and now literally believed they served in a war’ -@mtracey

  4. Thinking of my Dad, Capt. Lawrence E. Rafferty who was lost on March 23rd, 1951 along with 52 other airmen. You are not forgotten.

  5. Memorial Day should have stayed on May 30 and it should have stayed its own day, rather than get pushed to the last Monday of the month. I fear its meaning gets eroded.

    In Flanders Fields
    John McCrae – 1872-1918

    In Flanders fields the poppies blow
    Between the crosses, row on row,
    That mark our place; and in the sky
    The larks, still bravely singing, fly
    Scarce heard amid the guns below.

    We are the Dead. Short days ago
    We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
    Loved and were loved, and now we lie
    In Flanders fields.

    Take up our quarrel with the foe:
    To you from failing hands we throw
    The torch; be yours to hold it high.
    If ye break faith with us who die
    We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
    In Flanders fields.

  6. In memory of my friends who did not return from Vietnam . . . .

  7. Though intentions are honorable when people wish others a Happy Memorial day, the words “Happy” and “Memorial Day” should never appear in the same sentence.

    Memorial Day is NOT for Veterans who are alive now so please don’t offer us thanks for having served. However, I choose to Honor not only those Brothers and Sisters who died in combat, or later as a result of injuries sustained in combat .. but also those who served in combat and for whatever reasons are no longer with us.

    Some wounds are not obvious .. it’s not possible for us to know what those who survived combat carried with them to their graves .. nor if wounds received by those who survived the horrors of war might have had a hand in pushing them to an earlier grave.

    Butch Owen, U.S. Army (Retired)

    1. Butch go eat a bag of d****. It’s a celebration that honors those that made the sacrifice everyone should be “happy” and “grateful” for that.

    1. Condolences, KHS71.

      God Bless Gerald T Parmeter.

      Immediately prior to the April, 1970, Cambodia Incursion, my platoon was moving near Dau Tieng when someone tripped a wire and a mine blew me and 50 lbs. into the air without a scratch, and killed a Mid-West farm boy right next to me, hitting him in the head and putting him in an unconscious state, from which he never awoke.

      Around that same date, a fellow Southern Californian on point tripped a wire, was wounded about his eyes, face and ears, and was Medevaced to Japan and then Fort Lewis, WA.

      And, when being Medevaced myself the morning after a 2 AM firefight and a very slight shrapnel wound, a soldier from another platoon was being flown on the same Huey to Graves Registration. Directly in front of me while being offloaded, his arm fell off the stretcher, being held only by a thin string of tissue, so one of the soldier/attendants picked it up and respectfully returned it to the stretcher under the man’s poncho. The group then proceeded into the facility for processing. It was said that the KIA had low-crawled over a mine during a fire fight in the middle of the night.

      I make no claims. I was a terrified much of the time. I may have been a coward.

      Shhh!

      It happened.

      __________

      “Enjoy the long weekend.”

      – Kamala Harris

      1. ‘The most puzzling aspect of this tweet is why she attached a random photo of herself’ -@mtracey

    1. Honoring and remembering my Dad who was at Pearl Harbor, and who continued to serve in the US Air Force.

  10. Vice President Kamala Harris
    @VP
    United States government official

    “Enjoy the long weekend.”

    12:08 PM · May 29, 2021·The White House

    ____________________________________

    Impeach the traitor, Harris!

      1. One wonders whether she has the integrity to be a communist or anything other than a self-serving opportunist…

  12. We need a memory day for those who died of covid.
    We need to examine the one thing that kills 485,000 Americans a year: tobacco.
    Outlaw it. Now.

  13. To wish someone a “Happy” Memorial Day is a slap in the face to the real meaning, which is to mourn those who lost their lives in America’s wars and military misadventures. It’s a day of mourning, not celebration, in the original intent. It’s not a day to remember veterans – that’s on November 11. Turley claims to be a student of military history (although he never served.) He should know better.

    By the way, Memorial Day was originally to remember Union dead. It wasn’t observed in the South, which had it’s own memorial day to mourn Confederate dead. It lost it’s real meaning when politicians decided to make it a Federal holiday in 1971. If you really want to observe Memorial Day, go to a cemetery and find the graves of those who died in a war. By the way, there are far more war dead buried in local cemeteries than in all the VA cemeteries and Arlington combined.

    1. So it’s wrong to remember the military heroes in your own family history on this day? Or are you just saying that in your pedantic effort to school Mr Turley? Well then you used ” it’s ” incorrectly in the second sentence of the second paragraph. Now, crawl back into your hole.

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