If we are to honor all those who’ve died in our names, we must remember each individual soul. On this Memorial Day, I pay tribute to Private First Class Joseph Knott.
My brother served in Iraq and returned to us unharmed. The post office in my former town is named after a young man killed in Afghanistan. I often think of the stark contrast between our two families. Lucky, blessed, fortunate...all those words aren’t strong enough to describe the feelings we had when my brother came home. Then I think of the young man’s name over the post office entrance and the chasm of grief his death ripped through his own family. How his parents, like mine would have been had we lost our soldier, will never be the same. They never got to experience his growing older, perhaps starting his own family, watching as he embarked on a career. The empty seat at the table at holidays. He was only in his early 20s, the same age my brother was when he went overseas.
Today I’ll take a moment to sit with their grief, and the pain of all those who either got the call or answered the knock at the door to find uniformed soldiers with unfathomable news. God bless them all.
Very moving words, thanks. I often think of the different sorrows between the older soldier killed in action who left behind a wife and children versus the younger man or woman who never even got a chance to fall in love and marry, and their bereaved parents and siblings. Most of my peers were in their early twenties during the mid-2000s, so I have known more of the latter and like you, find it uniquely sad. Like the young man for whom your post office was named, we must honor their memory and in a sense live for them and make sure our lives “earn this,” as Tom Hanks’ character so poignantly said in “Saving Private Ryan.”
Years ago I was visiting the D-Day cemetery and saw an elderly woman sitting in one of those walkers that has a seat built into it. I asked her if she was enjoying the tour. She said with sadness as she viewed the thousands of crosses and Stars of Davids, "All those lost potentials. gone."
I said, "No they fulfilled their potential here on this beach. They gave their lives for us. We are speaking English today because of them."
I can't visit the Wall in DC. I did once and read the names of the men I served with, my brothers and I broke down and cried like a baby.
Just recounting that experience brings tears to my eyes. I will love these men until the day I die.
About six miles from Maastricht, in the Netherlands, lie buried 8,301 American soldiers who died in "Operation Market Garden" in the battles to liberate Holland.
Every one of the men buried in the cemetery, as well as those in the Canadian and British military cemeteries, has been adopted by a Dutch family who mind the grave, decorate it, and keep alive the memory of the soldier they have adopted. It is even the custom to keep a portrait of "their" American soldier in a place of honor in their home. Annually, on "Liberation Day," memorial services are held for "the men who died to liberate Holland." The day concludes with a concert. The final piece is always "Il Silenzio," a memorial piece commissioned by the Dutch, first played in 1965 on the 20th anniversary of Holland's liberation. It's been the concluding piece of the memorial concert ever since.
The year is 2014. The soloist is a 13-year-old Dutch girl, Melissa Venema, backed by André Rieu and his orchestra (the Royal Orchestra of the Netherlands). This beautiful concert piece is based upon the original version of taps and was composed by Italian composer Nino Rossi.
Hitler lost when the first landser crossed the Polish border. Boney with two fuck-off navies to his name couldn't secure the Channel long enought to cross it. I don't say the Heer couldn't have come, but they were not coming by sea or air. As for Panzers on the Susquehanna: Don't. Be. Silly.
Thank you, Bari, for publishing this account. My father grew up in modest circumstances in rural Texas. He was the first in his family to go to college on a scholarship working three part-time jobs to cover his costs. The day after Pearl Harbor he, who had never been out of the State of Texas, enlisted in the US Navy. 16 weeks later he was flying fighter planes off a carrier in the South Pacific, earning Ace status in aerial combat, something he would never talk about after the war. He went on to spend 33 years as a Naval Aviator - Tom Cruise without the melodrama - retiring as a highly decorated officer. He, along with all of our warriors, from PFC Knott to General McMasters exemplify values common in my father’s time but increasingly uncommon today - Duty, Honor, Country. To them, these were values worth risking and, at times, forfeiting your life for. Our warriors, then and now, represent the very best of us. Their blood, sweat, and tears paid for the freedoms and opportunities that are taken for granted today, a fact that we forget at our peril.
Especially Honor. Too many have absolutely no concept of Honor. In the '50s and '60s, a Trump and a Biden would be unthinkable. We had honorable men and women in politics and the media who stood above party to do the right things for their country. Most in the media and most politicians have lost any concept of Honor - the concept doesn't exist in a me-centric "multi-culture."
While I admire those who serve in our volunteer Army and how it transformed itself after Viet Nam, I fear that it itself has been a cause of this loss. Those who don't have to serve have no conception of service to something greater than themselves. Those who have never seen the great good that our country has striven for here and abroad cannot truly appreciate our country (the Brittany Griner's epiphany is a good case in point). We cannot "get our Country back" until we - all of us - rediscover Honor.
You’re so correct. I believe a “ movement “ to have high school graduates serve in a volunteer post; not necessarily the military; for a year will awaken an awareness of others that they’ll bring with them their entire adult life. Caring about someone or something other than your direct circle is important to one’s own growth.
My father, his brothers (my 6 uncles), my father in law, his brother all served in combat during WWII and if alive today would be appalled at Trump and Biden.
Yes our fathers that served were the greatest generation!
I could not agree with you more. My father, child of Eastern European immigrants, was 19 years old when his B-17 was shot down over Berlin, May 1944, ahead of D-Day. It was his 3rd mission. He was one of two suvivors. He was liberated by Patton's 5th army a few days short of his 21st birthday.
His time as a POW gave him a lot of time to think. He returned to the USA determined to make something if himself
He passed away 5 years ago at 94, never bitter, never regretful, but so appreciative of the opportunity America afforded him, and his children, all of whom succeeded as professionals.
What a difference from so many of the young people today.
My father in law was born and raised in Bartlett TX. He and his 2 brothers fought in WW2. When he was in his teens my husband went to Normandy with his father. It’s an experience he speaks of often. In 2003 my husband’s uncle was laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery. We attended the service. It was my first time there. I had seen pictures, but being there in person was overwhelming. My father in law was one of the most interesting people I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. He and his brothers were also highly educated and had successful careers in engineering and technology. I wish our daughter could have known him. Sadly he passed a few weeks before she was born.
A great tribute to Private First Class Joseph Knott. I feel sorrow for his friends and family. When paying tribute today we should also think honestly about the true rationale on why we send these men into conflicts that can & do take their lives. I suppose that there is little question where we must deploy our troops for our national security but of all the continuous conflicts in my 56 years it’s difficult for me to think of one that justifies the toll that we’ve burdened the friends and families of those who’ve lost their loved ones. I give thoughts and prayers to those men & women who’ve served today. I also hope that at some point our leaders will stop making the decisions to sacrifice them.
Today let us just think about and thank all who have served our country. Those who gave the ultimate sacrifice and those who thankfully came home safe. Tomorrow we can solve the world's problems.
No one in any time in the history of the world has enjoyed the sacrifice of its young men and women. However, I think it shows a misunderstanding of the true nature of humankind to believe there will ever be a time when it will not be necessary to have a military force. Maybe AI will provide an alternative to the necessity of sacrificing our young men and women, but there are things just as disturbing, if not more so, for our youth today who are so purposeless and aimless that they cannot see beyond the smallness of themselves and their personal “identities.” It’s killing us just as surely as a battlefield but with zero significance for perpetuating a better world.
I agree, yet I was more referring to those who gave/had to give their sons and daughters to what they were told was a higher cause. And the Stalins etc., ( even though they themselves were convinced of the virtue of their higher cause,)are the “exhibit A” for why we’ll always have to have an armed force.
General Ben Hodges explains why men are needlessly sent into conflicts abroad. It’s because of A Failure To Deter. He also explains why Ukraine will defeat Imperialist Russia.
Oxymoron? That is not what history says. After WW II Russia annexed all of Eastern Europe and tried to annex Greece and now it is trying to do the same with Ukraine.
I'd call that imperialistic. Hell, it's the definition of imperialism.
Rome and Great Britain annexed entire nations. The Soviet Union swallowed up one-half of Europe. With the exception of the annexation of parts of Mexico, a handful of islands count for nothing
And these people responding to you have simplified their lives greatly by removing the "oxy" component and embracing the remainder as their personal ideal.
I live in Israel, where most young people serve in some capacity. I currently have 2 sons in the IDF, and last month each had a narrow escape out in the field, that in the end injured another young man instead. In such a small country - with 24,213 lost soldiers since 1860 - it is rare for an Israeli family to lack a connection to an injured or murdered soldier, and our Yom Hazikaron (Memorial Day) is widely commemorated throughout the country with sirens, visits to gravesites and military cemeteries, and solemn ceremonies.
I live in Israel as well, with my two infants sons sleeping on me as I read this. I can only begin to imagine how that must keep you awake at night, but I’ll know myself soon enough. I hope BH your boys and all our children are safe. In a country this small the IDF are everyone’s sons and daughters.
I recall reading a harrowing account of the Yom Kippur War and the horrendous casualties that Israel suffered. And what a close run thing it was. Such a dramatic contrast to the Six Day War. It must resonate still.
It absolutely does. Since its inception Israel was never closer to extinction than during that dark time when Israeli leaders dreadfully miscalculated and thousands of young men were killed.
If you have never lived with the military, it’s hard to explain what truly good and dedicated soldiers, neighbors, and friends these men and women are. Those that gave their all, should never be forgotten and only by remaining free and being a nation with compassion and a shining light is how we must honor them.
So many lives cut short. May their souls be blessed and also the families that have paid the price also. They now only have memories.
As long as we have a Communist Fifth Column, how can we any more tell any of our young men and women they are "fighting for freedom"? We won the battle in Vietnam. We had a signed peace treaty which was earned by battlefield success. The war was over and we won. Then Nixon was undermined in what I personally believe was a CIA operation, but which was certainly a Democrat led political war of aggression, and we retreated. We retreated from a war we had won at the cost of the lives of some 60,000 young men, and hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese were subsequently murdered in cold blood, million of families were ripped apart--the parents sent to work and reeducation camps, the children to indoctrination in the North--and all the hippies and "peaceniks" who had unwittingly done so much to destroy South Vietnam took to cocaine and discos.
And Iraq? We CREATED ISIS. Obama trained and funded them when they were still for a brief period inaccurately called "freedom fighters", so they could overthrow Assad in Syria, as part of our long and to me still incomprehensible war with Russia, whose proxy Assad is and remains in that region.
Afghanistan? We not only retreated from a war we had won, not only left billions in military hardware, but left large piles of CASH. And we snuck out in the middle of the night, without even telling our putative allies. It was disgusting and ignominious.
Who runs this damn country? It is not people who love our way of life and freedom. I would not want either of my kids serving in the military, and am a staunch patriot, at least as far as the ideals of this country go.
I read history. Where do you get your information? It sounds like a much happier place.
Ignorance certainly does seem to have much to commend it, and manifestly it can and often is practiced with as much or more diligence than wisdom and knowledge.
I support American ideals. This includes despising and calling out public lies, particularly regarding wars in which we asked American kids to die.
Your understanding of the history of ISIS is wrong. It is also anti-American. 1999 preceded 2003.
…………………..
Islamic State
Also known as IS, ISIS, ISIL, Daesh
Founder Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
The Islamic State (IS),[143] also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL; /ˈaɪsɪl/), Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS; /ˈaɪsɪs/),[144][145] and by its Arabic acronym Da'ish[146][147] or Daesh (داعش, Dāʿish, IPA: [ˈdaːʕɪʃ]),[148] is a militant Islamist group and former unrecognized quasi-state[149][150][151][152][153] that follows the Salafi jihadist branch of Sunni Islam.[154] It was founded by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in 1999 and gained global prominence in 2014, when it drove Iraqi security forces out of key cities during the Anbar campaign,[155] ….
That's astonishing: you managed to successfully conduct a Control C/Control V. Now if only someone would teach you what to copy and what to paste. In principle we have schools for that, but most of them fail, don't they?
You know what? That response was so puerile I'm not even going to bother with a substantive reply.
You found it puerile that I demonstrated that your claim that America created ISIS was false. Reiterating, ISIS was created by Al Zarqawi in 1999. This was four years before the United States invaded Iraq. You should be thanking me for correcting you.
I did not find one falsehood in Mr. Cooper's comment. To the contrary, he spoke inconvenient truths. Was there glory in the horribly botched nation building exercises in Iraq and Afghanistan? Why is Jane Fonda enjoying fame and riches when she gave aid and comfort to an enemy that went on to butcher their own people? Why are we allowing the CIA - incompetents except when it comes to spying on Americans - to create havoc all over the world while getting nothing right? Patriotism involves realism about the best interests of America's people. That's what our soldiers have - and are - dying for. They deserve better than to be ill used by our government.
You ignored nearly everything I wrote, didn't you? Did I say that making Iraq a democracy was a worthwhile goal? No. Was that even our stated aim going in? No: it was to prevent someone with a long history of aggressive war making from getting nuclear weapons. That was the story we were told, in any event.
What I said, or rather what anyone actually familiar with the history would have understood, was that after some five years of hard fighting we had peace, then created a new enemy.
As a bar acquainance was once told by a CCT friend of his, when he first went to Iraq he went everywhere with his M-4 and full kit. Then after a while, he just took a fully loaded side arm with reloads. Then after a while he just took the sidearm with one magazine and felt safe. That was about 2010, 2011.
Then ISIS was created in Syria by our people--the CIA and people they hired--and the whole thing was plunged into horror again. Medecins Sans Frontieres was reporting in 2012 that people we were funding were sawing the arms and legs off of little girls, and were openly seeking an Islamist State in Syria.
Did you not read about that? Oh. Interesting. I wonder, just wonder, how that is possible? I haven't a clue. It was a major story.
And Benghazi was a weapon smuggling operation. We only found out about the secret compound after CIA operatives defied direct orders to try and rescue the Ambassador, who was supposed to be left to die. That's my understanding. Those weapons were leaving Libya and going to what became ISIS.
And I could go on, but why? You are not serious. I get that. I didn't post this for you. Every point I made I can buttress from personal knowledge. I don't need to look anything up, although in the interest of full diligence sometimes I still do. My memory is very good, and these things matter A LOT to me.
Think about it: Nobel Peace Laureate recipient Barack Hussein Obama was funding people he knew were torturing little girls to death in front of their parents. Obviously if I read about it, he could have too.
Nixon was undermined by 2 things (in no order) A. The Media Hated Him (Every bit as much as Donald Trump) B. His personality (he really wasn't a People Person). If you think he EVER forgot or forgave losing the Governors Race in Ca. Think Again C. The Right Didn't support him like they should have. Wage & Price Controls was a real Deal Killer.
"ISIS was created by Islam. America did not create Islam.
The Afghanistan war was folly. Creating a democracy in a Muslim country is Sisyphusian."
Couple of thoughts
The thing people Really need to understand is there is a war going on Inside Islam. (sources on request), We are merely collateral damage.
Democracy in a Muslim country. may I recommend, Indonesia? Pre 1979 Afghanistan had Something Like a Democracy. By that I mean the Leaders had to listen to The People...or else.
The Real problem with Afghanistan and Iraq was two fold 1. A failure to really understand the culture of the county (Particularly true in Afghanistan Tribes Tribes Tribes) 2. The Bush Administration Never really explained to America,why we invaded/liberated Iraq (Several Very Good Reason Why. Saddam was a really REALLY Bad Guy) Oh yes, every couple of weeks someone would go on the Sunday Talking Head Shows and make the case. Meanwhile day after day after day after day we get 2 killed here 3 killed there, with no response from the administration.
As The Marines were taking Baghdad I 1st asked my 3 small simple questions 1. What Do You What? 2. How Do You Get it? 3 THEN WHAT HAPPENS?
I COULD go on and on and on (this being one of my obsession)
You sound anti-American.
Anti-American? I would not go that far. Angry, yes and with some reason. But Anti-American?
This program was a disaster. Just imagine how much worse a Syrian refugee crisis could have gotten. Its destabilizing effects were already extreme, and minority populations (esp Christian and Yazidi) continue to be hard hit
Yes!! Thanks for posting. There is--or was, since these things tend to disappear at least from YouTube--a video of John Kerry talking with I guess non-psychotic Syrian dissidents in I think 2015, saying that the goal was not and never was to fight ISIS, but rather regime change.
The best explanation of this otherwise irrational obsession with Assad I have seen is that the Gulf States wanted to open up natural gas pipelines through Syria and ultimately to the European market. We supported this both because they were paying us, and because for reasons that are unclear to me the Deep State hates Russia, and that would have been direct competition.
The sheer evil of this scheme is impossible for me personally to imagine. I am growing increasingly inclined to see the CIA more or less as a global shit stirrer, whose aim it is to provoke conflicts that can then create profit opportunities both for banks and arms manufacturers and dealers. They don't really care who is fighting who or why, as long as somebody, preferably both sides, are buying arms and taking out loans to do it.
Looked at through this prism, the past 70 years starts making a whole lot more sense.
Thank you Gen. McMaster and Bari for reminding us that Memorial Day is not a "holiday." But something different. Where we remember the fallen and their loved ones and the debt we owe them.
I had two additional thoughts.
First of my own father. Who fought in the jungles on Guadalcanal, New Guinea and the Philippines. So many of his generation came back to us with deep but untreated wounds. Wounds that wounded their families. Today we speak of PTSD for every unpleasant event. These men were simply discharged and told to pick up their lives and rebuild our land. We need to honor and understand them and the horrors they endured. Would we have done as well? I don't think so.
Second, my memories now, as on every Memorial Day, drift to my cousin, Sgt. Patrick McDaniel, who was killed in Vietnam (actually the Cambodian invasion) when his jeep was hit by a rocket and he died while giving covering fire to protect his fellow soldiers. I think of him lying now in a peaceful corner of Pennsylvania, while he should be enjoying his grandchildren, as I am. There is, however, a somewhat happy ending to this story. While home on leave, Pat had fathered a son - a boy he never knew. A boy who would grow up to win the award named for Pat at the very high school they both attended. And that night, after the ceremony David's mother confessed the truth to him. The sadness of it all - Pat's broken parents lived and died only a few miles from the grandson they never knew. Life, in all its wonder.
War is cruel. It is ugly. It is not a sporting contest. But we must never forget that "We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm."
Beautifully written and heartfelt tribute, Lt. General McMaster. I’ll think about PFC Knott on this Memorial Day and will always be grateful to him and very proud that America produces people like him.
This wonderful tribute to a fallen comrade demonstrates so completely the marked differences of the politicians' motivations and the soldiers' motivations. I have no problem denigrating politicians, but never our troops.
There is no documentation that this “spitting” ever happened. As for “conservatives” assuming you count Nixon and company in their number: in October 1968, Johnson had arranged a peace conference which would have ended the war on essentially the same terms secured by Kissinger et al in 1973. Nixon, running for President, got wind of it,and was captured on tape discussing the plan with the South Vietnamese by phone at their embassy. He persuaded them that he would get them a better deal if they refused to attend the conference. William Buckley, ( a founder of American Conservatism and publisher of the National Review) said, when this was revealed by the BBC in the 90s that Nixon had committed treason and was in fact a TRAITOR. The war continued for five more years wasting tens of thousands of American lives and millions of Vietnamese lives. Johnson didn’t publicize this at the time because the wiretap was illegal - go figure. I would suggest that rather than worrying about the Left denigrating our troops, you consider the Right having murdered them
We should have never been in that war in the first place and who got us into the war using a false narrative, the Bay of Tonkin lie, to enable a corrupt president to send troops to Vietnam? LBJ, that's who a Jim Crow Democrat.
Thank you General McMaster for this moving essay. I can remember when my parents called it "Decoration Day", and according to various stories it began as a day to remember the Civil War dead (especially on the Union side because apparently it started in Boalsburg, PA in 1864 before the war ended). At some point, around 1970, Decoration Day or Memorial Day was changed from 30 May to the last Monday in May, so that everybody could have a three-day weekend. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but now I'm not so sure...just seems to be another day for shopping (lots of Memorial Day weekend sales), slurping and eating and watching baseball on TV. Somehow all these three-day weekends have trivialized something that could and should bring us together...a shared history of sacrifice and purpose.
Over the past decade, questioning the feminist narrative has brought to mind the inequality of males being obligated to go to war --- and probably die there. This is a circumstance I cannot even begin to imagine, though that sympathy has been helped along by novels written by men who were obligated to go to war. Richard Yates comes to mind. And yet, when I bring this up in class, it's met with blank stares. Those born after Vietnam just don't get it.
What voluntary service did was divide us from what used to unite us. In those novels, the upper class men bonded with the lower class men. They were men hell bent on getting each other out of there. These days, this 'service' is remote to most people.
I recently renewed a friendship with someone whose father served in WWII, and her brother in Afghanistan. Her brother's tank got hit and his buddy died next to him. When he completed his service and returned home with a serious case of PTSD, his wife disowned him. Fortunately, he wound up with a great nurse -- who became his next wife.
To think we now have youth who claim to be "traumatized" by a pinch on the butt.
My brother was in the Marine Corps in Vietnam, Company E, 3rd of the Ist, if I recall correctly. He became buddies with Miles White, a bond formed quickly, as invariably happens in active combat zones. He watched young Cpl. White die from one of Charlie’s bullets. My brother named his son after Miles. I’ve visited his plaque at the Vietnam War Memorial wall in D.C. Today I remember Marine Cpl. Miles White. Rest in peace.
Word. To die for one's country is, after dying for one's faith in God, the supreme act of charity. Memorial Day is not celebrated in other countries. What a privilege to have a national public holiday set apart to honour these soldiers.
I remember, not long ago, the yard of the Tower of London filled with poppies in a memorable tribute to those of the United Kingdom's forces that died in the First World War to protect and perpetuate the concept of free and open governance of the people.
Anyone viewing that scene couldn't help but be respectful...and yes, proud...of those who gave their lives so others could live.
I thought this name looked familiar. He was the National Security Adviser under Trump, after Flynn was taken out by the Deep State for crimes Joe Biden and his people bragged about committing. He served multiple years in jail, after a lifetime of difficult and honorable service, because of people like John Brennan and James Comey. And possibly H.R. McMaster. I'm not going to refresh memory, but among other things, he agreed with the Russian Collusion hoax publicly. Given that it was always a hoax, that is either a very stupid thing for an intelligence professional to do; or a very dishonest one.
This is a core reality I can't understand: how and why do intelligent, brave and seemingly patriotic Americans sign on to patently anti-democratic authoritarian schemes, which often include highly profitable war ventures? Is it money? Do you fight for a while out of idealism, realize it's all BS, then take the first big check thrown your way? Was it always dishonest? I really can't tell. I suppose it must be a mixture.
But that many Americans who should know better are working hard to undermine the law and the Will of the People is beyond dispute in my opinion. And if more of them don't start speaking up and fighting back against their own, I can't see how we are anything but a paper democracy five years from now, if indeed we have not already lost.
These are hard truths. Tough to swallow. But I'm not asking anyone to die for their country, or parents to mourn their children, or children their parents. That mainly seems to me increasingly to be the people Eisenhower and Smedley Butler (who by the way was asked to lead a Fascist revolution in this country but refused) warned us about.
And I will name one name: Josh Hagar. He was killed by an IED in Iraq around 2006. It made his father sick with grief. I honor him today by demanding more from all of you. Suck it up and see the world as it is, not as you want it to be.
I wince at the loss of these fine young men. One can reasonably ask if their sacrifices were in vain, particularly in Afghanistan. But, I work with Operation 300 in Florida, and I can tell you the families of the fallen, and the volunteers who run Operation 300 are the finest of America. That such men, and the families they and their wives build, still exist gives me hope for a country that seems every day becoming unhinged; and casually, even gleefully, throwing away the birthright of freedom so many have fought for.
My brother served in Iraq and returned to us unharmed. The post office in my former town is named after a young man killed in Afghanistan. I often think of the stark contrast between our two families. Lucky, blessed, fortunate...all those words aren’t strong enough to describe the feelings we had when my brother came home. Then I think of the young man’s name over the post office entrance and the chasm of grief his death ripped through his own family. How his parents, like mine would have been had we lost our soldier, will never be the same. They never got to experience his growing older, perhaps starting his own family, watching as he embarked on a career. The empty seat at the table at holidays. He was only in his early 20s, the same age my brother was when he went overseas.
Today I’ll take a moment to sit with their grief, and the pain of all those who either got the call or answered the knock at the door to find uniformed soldiers with unfathomable news. God bless them all.
Very moving words, thanks. I often think of the different sorrows between the older soldier killed in action who left behind a wife and children versus the younger man or woman who never even got a chance to fall in love and marry, and their bereaved parents and siblings. Most of my peers were in their early twenties during the mid-2000s, so I have known more of the latter and like you, find it uniquely sad. Like the young man for whom your post office was named, we must honor their memory and in a sense live for them and make sure our lives “earn this,” as Tom Hanks’ character so poignantly said in “Saving Private Ryan.”
Years ago I was visiting the D-Day cemetery and saw an elderly woman sitting in one of those walkers that has a seat built into it. I asked her if she was enjoying the tour. She said with sadness as she viewed the thousands of crosses and Stars of Davids, "All those lost potentials. gone."
I said, "No they fulfilled their potential here on this beach. They gave their lives for us. We are speaking English today because of them."
I can't visit the Wall in DC. I did once and read the names of the men I served with, my brothers and I broke down and cried like a baby.
Just recounting that experience brings tears to my eyes. I will love these men until the day I die.
SORRY LP I'M STILL ONLY ALLOWED TO POST IN "REPLY".
IN FLANDERS FIELD
In Flanders Field, the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The lark's, 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.
Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae
THE SILENCE...
About six miles from Maastricht, in the Netherlands, lie buried 8,301 American soldiers who died in "Operation Market Garden" in the battles to liberate Holland.
Every one of the men buried in the cemetery, as well as those in the Canadian and British military cemeteries, has been adopted by a Dutch family who mind the grave, decorate it, and keep alive the memory of the soldier they have adopted. It is even the custom to keep a portrait of "their" American soldier in a place of honor in their home. Annually, on "Liberation Day," memorial services are held for "the men who died to liberate Holland." The day concludes with a concert. The final piece is always "Il Silenzio," a memorial piece commissioned by the Dutch, first played in 1965 on the 20th anniversary of Holland's liberation. It's been the concluding piece of the memorial concert ever since.
The year is 2014. The soloist is a 13-year-old Dutch girl, Melissa Venema, backed by André Rieu and his orchestra (the Royal Orchestra of the Netherlands). This beautiful concert piece is based upon the original version of taps and was composed by Italian composer Nino Rossi.
http://www.flixxy.com/trumpet-solo-melissa-venema.htm
https://calegion.org/dutch-remember-american-sacrifices-in-wwii-liberation/
This was so beautiful. I thank you very much for posting this for all of us.
You were blessed to be there.
Thank you!! Very nice.
McCrae died of pneumonia during the war.
amen!
Hitler lost when the first landser crossed the Polish border. Boney with two fuck-off navies to his name couldn't secure the Channel long enought to cross it. I don't say the Heer couldn't have come, but they were not coming by sea or air. As for Panzers on the Susquehanna: Don't. Be. Silly.
I am baffled by your comment
Me too.
God bless them and God bless the USA
Amen!
Thx. I’d encourage you to listen to this too. https://open.spotify.com/episode/0SLFyKoRVWs7ofaWYnBq2z?si=xQBpfmLXS2OU9nk2gd4oVg
Thank you, Bari, for publishing this account. My father grew up in modest circumstances in rural Texas. He was the first in his family to go to college on a scholarship working three part-time jobs to cover his costs. The day after Pearl Harbor he, who had never been out of the State of Texas, enlisted in the US Navy. 16 weeks later he was flying fighter planes off a carrier in the South Pacific, earning Ace status in aerial combat, something he would never talk about after the war. He went on to spend 33 years as a Naval Aviator - Tom Cruise without the melodrama - retiring as a highly decorated officer. He, along with all of our warriors, from PFC Knott to General McMasters exemplify values common in my father’s time but increasingly uncommon today - Duty, Honor, Country. To them, these were values worth risking and, at times, forfeiting your life for. Our warriors, then and now, represent the very best of us. Their blood, sweat, and tears paid for the freedoms and opportunities that are taken for granted today, a fact that we forget at our peril.
Especially Honor. Too many have absolutely no concept of Honor. In the '50s and '60s, a Trump and a Biden would be unthinkable. We had honorable men and women in politics and the media who stood above party to do the right things for their country. Most in the media and most politicians have lost any concept of Honor - the concept doesn't exist in a me-centric "multi-culture."
While I admire those who serve in our volunteer Army and how it transformed itself after Viet Nam, I fear that it itself has been a cause of this loss. Those who don't have to serve have no conception of service to something greater than themselves. Those who have never seen the great good that our country has striven for here and abroad cannot truly appreciate our country (the Brittany Griner's epiphany is a good case in point). We cannot "get our Country back" until we - all of us - rediscover Honor.
You’re so correct. I believe a “ movement “ to have high school graduates serve in a volunteer post; not necessarily the military; for a year will awaken an awareness of others that they’ll bring with them their entire adult life. Caring about someone or something other than your direct circle is important to one’s own growth.
My father, his brothers (my 6 uncles), my father in law, his brother all served in combat during WWII and if alive today would be appalled at Trump and Biden.
Yes our fathers that served were the greatest generation!
I could not agree with you more. My father, child of Eastern European immigrants, was 19 years old when his B-17 was shot down over Berlin, May 1944, ahead of D-Day. It was his 3rd mission. He was one of two suvivors. He was liberated by Patton's 5th army a few days short of his 21st birthday.
His time as a POW gave him a lot of time to think. He returned to the USA determined to make something if himself
He passed away 5 years ago at 94, never bitter, never regretful, but so appreciative of the opportunity America afforded him, and his children, all of whom succeeded as professionals.
What a difference from so many of the young people today.
Amazing legacy
My father in law was born and raised in Bartlett TX. He and his 2 brothers fought in WW2. When he was in his teens my husband went to Normandy with his father. It’s an experience he speaks of often. In 2003 my husband’s uncle was laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery. We attended the service. It was my first time there. I had seen pictures, but being there in person was overwhelming. My father in law was one of the most interesting people I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. He and his brothers were also highly educated and had successful careers in engineering and technology. I wish our daughter could have known him. Sadly he passed a few weeks before she was born.
No sufficient words, merely gratitude for our service members, our veterans and their families.
A great tribute to Private First Class Joseph Knott. I feel sorrow for his friends and family. When paying tribute today we should also think honestly about the true rationale on why we send these men into conflicts that can & do take their lives. I suppose that there is little question where we must deploy our troops for our national security but of all the continuous conflicts in my 56 years it’s difficult for me to think of one that justifies the toll that we’ve burdened the friends and families of those who’ve lost their loved ones. I give thoughts and prayers to those men & women who’ve served today. I also hope that at some point our leaders will stop making the decisions to sacrifice them.
Today let us just think about and thank all who have served our country. Those who gave the ultimate sacrifice and those who thankfully came home safe. Tomorrow we can solve the world's problems.
Agree
No one in any time in the history of the world has enjoyed the sacrifice of its young men and women. However, I think it shows a misunderstanding of the true nature of humankind to believe there will ever be a time when it will not be necessary to have a military force. Maybe AI will provide an alternative to the necessity of sacrificing our young men and women, but there are things just as disturbing, if not more so, for our youth today who are so purposeless and aimless that they cannot see beyond the smallness of themselves and their personal “identities.” It’s killing us just as surely as a battlefield but with zero significance for perpetuating a better world.
“No one in any time in the history of the world has enjoyed the sacrifice of its young men and women. “
-Not so sure about that. Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, and others didn’t seem to mind.
I agree, yet I was more referring to those who gave/had to give their sons and daughters to what they were told was a higher cause. And the Stalins etc., ( even though they themselves were convinced of the virtue of their higher cause,)are the “exhibit A” for why we’ll always have to have an armed force.
👆THIS👆
Evans, yours seems to be the lone voice of reason and humanity among this jingo jungle. Well said.
Evans Wroten
General Ben Hodges explains why men are needlessly sent into conflicts abroad. It’s because of A Failure To Deter. He also explains why Ukraine will defeat Imperialist Russia.
https://youtu.be/BS5yBttxwEs
“Imperialist Russia”.....that’s somewhat of an oxymoron.
Oxymoron? That is not what history says. After WW II Russia annexed all of Eastern Europe and tried to annex Greece and now it is trying to do the same with Ukraine.
I'd call that imperialistic. Hell, it's the definition of imperialism.
While we annexed nothing and no one are are called imperialists by the lunatic left.
Go figure.
We annexed nothing?
There have been the arc of many empires throughout history. Ours is no different.
Rome and Great Britain annexed entire nations. The Soviet Union swallowed up one-half of Europe. With the exception of the annexation of parts of Mexico, a handful of islands count for nothing
Absolutely. And that’s their current ambition: to restore the borders of the empire to its prior vastness and glory. Not an oxymoron at all.
And these people responding to you have simplified their lives greatly by removing the "oxy" component and embracing the remainder as their personal ideal.
It’s a truism. You might understand if you read Professor Stephen Kotkin’s essays on Russian history or listen to his talks on YouTube.
I live in Israel, where most young people serve in some capacity. I currently have 2 sons in the IDF, and last month each had a narrow escape out in the field, that in the end injured another young man instead. In such a small country - with 24,213 lost soldiers since 1860 - it is rare for an Israeli family to lack a connection to an injured or murdered soldier, and our Yom Hazikaron (Memorial Day) is widely commemorated throughout the country with sirens, visits to gravesites and military cemeteries, and solemn ceremonies.
I live in Israel as well, with my two infants sons sleeping on me as I read this. I can only begin to imagine how that must keep you awake at night, but I’ll know myself soon enough. I hope BH your boys and all our children are safe. In a country this small the IDF are everyone’s sons and daughters.
I recall reading a harrowing account of the Yom Kippur War and the horrendous casualties that Israel suffered. And what a close run thing it was. Such a dramatic contrast to the Six Day War. It must resonate still.
It absolutely does. Since its inception Israel was never closer to extinction than during that dark time when Israeli leaders dreadfully miscalculated and thousands of young men were killed.
If you have never lived with the military, it’s hard to explain what truly good and dedicated soldiers, neighbors, and friends these men and women are. Those that gave their all, should never be forgotten and only by remaining free and being a nation with compassion and a shining light is how we must honor them.
So many lives cut short. May their souls be blessed and also the families that have paid the price also. They now only have memories.
As long as we have a Communist Fifth Column, how can we any more tell any of our young men and women they are "fighting for freedom"? We won the battle in Vietnam. We had a signed peace treaty which was earned by battlefield success. The war was over and we won. Then Nixon was undermined in what I personally believe was a CIA operation, but which was certainly a Democrat led political war of aggression, and we retreated. We retreated from a war we had won at the cost of the lives of some 60,000 young men, and hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese were subsequently murdered in cold blood, million of families were ripped apart--the parents sent to work and reeducation camps, the children to indoctrination in the North--and all the hippies and "peaceniks" who had unwittingly done so much to destroy South Vietnam took to cocaine and discos.
And Iraq? We CREATED ISIS. Obama trained and funded them when they were still for a brief period inaccurately called "freedom fighters", so they could overthrow Assad in Syria, as part of our long and to me still incomprehensible war with Russia, whose proxy Assad is and remains in that region.
Afghanistan? We not only retreated from a war we had won, not only left billions in military hardware, but left large piles of CASH. And we snuck out in the middle of the night, without even telling our putative allies. It was disgusting and ignominious.
Who runs this damn country? It is not people who love our way of life and freedom. I would not want either of my kids serving in the military, and am a staunch patriot, at least as far as the ideals of this country go.
Wake up, people. It's late in the evening.
Barry Cooper
Nixon was undermined by his own people.
ISIS was created by Islam. America did not create Islam.
The Afghanistan war was folly. Creating a democracy in a Muslim country is Sisyphusian.
You sound anti-American.
I read history. Where do you get your information? It sounds like a much happier place.
Ignorance certainly does seem to have much to commend it, and manifestly it can and often is practiced with as much or more diligence than wisdom and knowledge.
I support American ideals. This includes despising and calling out public lies, particularly regarding wars in which we asked American kids to die.
Barry Cooper
Your understanding of the history of ISIS is wrong. It is also anti-American. 1999 preceded 2003.
…………………..
Islamic State
Also known as IS, ISIS, ISIL, Daesh
Founder Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
The Islamic State (IS),[143] also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL; /ˈaɪsɪl/), Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS; /ˈaɪsɪs/),[144][145] and by its Arabic acronym Da'ish[146][147] or Daesh (داعش, Dāʿish, IPA: [ˈdaːʕɪʃ]),[148] is a militant Islamist group and former unrecognized quasi-state[149][150][151][152][153] that follows the Salafi jihadist branch of Sunni Islam.[154] It was founded by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in 1999 and gained global prominence in 2014, when it drove Iraqi security forces out of key cities during the Anbar campaign,[155] ….
That's astonishing: you managed to successfully conduct a Control C/Control V. Now if only someone would teach you what to copy and what to paste. In principle we have schools for that, but most of them fail, don't they?
You know what? That response was so puerile I'm not even going to bother with a substantive reply.
Barry Cooper
You found it puerile that I demonstrated that your claim that America created ISIS was false. Reiterating, ISIS was created by Al Zarqawi in 1999. This was four years before the United States invaded Iraq. You should be thanking me for correcting you.
I'm pretty sure I sat next to you in 8th grade social studies. It's funny: you never know who will be memorable and why.
To the contrary. Part of being a patriot is being a realist.
There is nothing realistic in Barry Cooper’s comment. What Islamic country is democratic?
I did not find one falsehood in Mr. Cooper's comment. To the contrary, he spoke inconvenient truths. Was there glory in the horribly botched nation building exercises in Iraq and Afghanistan? Why is Jane Fonda enjoying fame and riches when she gave aid and comfort to an enemy that went on to butcher their own people? Why are we allowing the CIA - incompetents except when it comes to spying on Americans - to create havoc all over the world while getting nothing right? Patriotism involves realism about the best interests of America's people. That's what our soldiers have - and are - dying for. They deserve better than to be ill used by our government.
Not one falsehood. Good for you Bruce. Confession is good for the soul.
All confession, or just voluntary confession with respect to things you have actually done?
You ignored nearly everything I wrote, didn't you? Did I say that making Iraq a democracy was a worthwhile goal? No. Was that even our stated aim going in? No: it was to prevent someone with a long history of aggressive war making from getting nuclear weapons. That was the story we were told, in any event.
What I said, or rather what anyone actually familiar with the history would have understood, was that after some five years of hard fighting we had peace, then created a new enemy.
As a bar acquainance was once told by a CCT friend of his, when he first went to Iraq he went everywhere with his M-4 and full kit. Then after a while, he just took a fully loaded side arm with reloads. Then after a while he just took the sidearm with one magazine and felt safe. That was about 2010, 2011.
Then ISIS was created in Syria by our people--the CIA and people they hired--and the whole thing was plunged into horror again. Medecins Sans Frontieres was reporting in 2012 that people we were funding were sawing the arms and legs off of little girls, and were openly seeking an Islamist State in Syria.
Did you not read about that? Oh. Interesting. I wonder, just wonder, how that is possible? I haven't a clue. It was a major story.
And Benghazi was a weapon smuggling operation. We only found out about the secret compound after CIA operatives defied direct orders to try and rescue the Ambassador, who was supposed to be left to die. That's my understanding. Those weapons were leaving Libya and going to what became ISIS.
And I could go on, but why? You are not serious. I get that. I didn't post this for you. Every point I made I can buttress from personal knowledge. I don't need to look anything up, although in the interest of full diligence sometimes I still do. My memory is very good, and these things matter A LOT to me.
Think about it: Nobel Peace Laureate recipient Barack Hussein Obama was funding people he knew were torturing little girls to death in front of their parents. Obviously if I read about it, he could have too.
That is the world we actually live in.
1. Define Democratic? 2. Ever hear of Indonesia?
Ever hear of doing some reading. It is minimalist.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Indonesia
Well if it is in Wikipedia it MUST be true.
1Nixon was undermined by his own people.
Nixon was undermined by 2 things (in no order) A. The Media Hated Him (Every bit as much as Donald Trump) B. His personality (he really wasn't a People Person). If you think he EVER forgot or forgave losing the Governors Race in Ca. Think Again C. The Right Didn't support him like they should have. Wage & Price Controls was a real Deal Killer.
"ISIS was created by Islam. America did not create Islam.
The Afghanistan war was folly. Creating a democracy in a Muslim country is Sisyphusian."
Couple of thoughts
The thing people Really need to understand is there is a war going on Inside Islam. (sources on request), We are merely collateral damage.
Democracy in a Muslim country. may I recommend, Indonesia? Pre 1979 Afghanistan had Something Like a Democracy. By that I mean the Leaders had to listen to The People...or else.
The Real problem with Afghanistan and Iraq was two fold 1. A failure to really understand the culture of the county (Particularly true in Afghanistan Tribes Tribes Tribes) 2. The Bush Administration Never really explained to America,why we invaded/liberated Iraq (Several Very Good Reason Why. Saddam was a really REALLY Bad Guy) Oh yes, every couple of weeks someone would go on the Sunday Talking Head Shows and make the case. Meanwhile day after day after day after day we get 2 killed here 3 killed there, with no response from the administration.
As The Marines were taking Baghdad I 1st asked my 3 small simple questions 1. What Do You What? 2. How Do You Get it? 3 THEN WHAT HAPPENS?
I COULD go on and on and on (this being one of my obsession)
You sound anti-American.
Anti-American? I would not go that far. Angry, yes and with some reason. But Anti-American?
This program was a disaster. Just imagine how much worse a Syrian refugee crisis could have gotten. Its destabilizing effects were already extreme, and minority populations (esp Christian and Yazidi) continue to be hard hit
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/02/world/middleeast/cia-syria-rebel-arm-train-trump.html
Unfortunately at least one NATO ally continues to fund and "rebrand" AQ /IS and send its mercenaries around the world (Turkey)
Yes!! Thanks for posting. There is--or was, since these things tend to disappear at least from YouTube--a video of John Kerry talking with I guess non-psychotic Syrian dissidents in I think 2015, saying that the goal was not and never was to fight ISIS, but rather regime change.
The best explanation of this otherwise irrational obsession with Assad I have seen is that the Gulf States wanted to open up natural gas pipelines through Syria and ultimately to the European market. We supported this both because they were paying us, and because for reasons that are unclear to me the Deep State hates Russia, and that would have been direct competition.
The sheer evil of this scheme is impossible for me personally to imagine. I am growing increasingly inclined to see the CIA more or less as a global shit stirrer, whose aim it is to provoke conflicts that can then create profit opportunities both for banks and arms manufacturers and dealers. They don't really care who is fighting who or why, as long as somebody, preferably both sides, are buying arms and taking out loans to do it.
Looked at through this prism, the past 70 years starts making a whole lot more sense.
Thank you Gen. McMaster and Bari for reminding us that Memorial Day is not a "holiday." But something different. Where we remember the fallen and their loved ones and the debt we owe them.
I had two additional thoughts.
First of my own father. Who fought in the jungles on Guadalcanal, New Guinea and the Philippines. So many of his generation came back to us with deep but untreated wounds. Wounds that wounded their families. Today we speak of PTSD for every unpleasant event. These men were simply discharged and told to pick up their lives and rebuild our land. We need to honor and understand them and the horrors they endured. Would we have done as well? I don't think so.
Second, my memories now, as on every Memorial Day, drift to my cousin, Sgt. Patrick McDaniel, who was killed in Vietnam (actually the Cambodian invasion) when his jeep was hit by a rocket and he died while giving covering fire to protect his fellow soldiers. I think of him lying now in a peaceful corner of Pennsylvania, while he should be enjoying his grandchildren, as I am. There is, however, a somewhat happy ending to this story. While home on leave, Pat had fathered a son - a boy he never knew. A boy who would grow up to win the award named for Pat at the very high school they both attended. And that night, after the ceremony David's mother confessed the truth to him. The sadness of it all - Pat's broken parents lived and died only a few miles from the grandson they never knew. Life, in all its wonder.
War is cruel. It is ugly. It is not a sporting contest. But we must never forget that "We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm."
Beautifully written and heartfelt tribute, Lt. General McMaster. I’ll think about PFC Knott on this Memorial Day and will always be grateful to him and very proud that America produces people like him.
This wonderful tribute to a fallen comrade demonstrates so completely the marked differences of the politicians' motivations and the soldiers' motivations. I have no problem denigrating politicians, but never our troops.
The left has no problem denigrating our troops. It wasn't conservatives who spit on GIs returning from Vietnam.
There is no documentation that this “spitting” ever happened. As for “conservatives” assuming you count Nixon and company in their number: in October 1968, Johnson had arranged a peace conference which would have ended the war on essentially the same terms secured by Kissinger et al in 1973. Nixon, running for President, got wind of it,and was captured on tape discussing the plan with the South Vietnamese by phone at their embassy. He persuaded them that he would get them a better deal if they refused to attend the conference. William Buckley, ( a founder of American Conservatism and publisher of the National Review) said, when this was revealed by the BBC in the 90s that Nixon had committed treason and was in fact a TRAITOR. The war continued for five more years wasting tens of thousands of American lives and millions of Vietnamese lives. Johnson didn’t publicize this at the time because the wiretap was illegal - go figure. I would suggest that rather than worrying about the Left denigrating our troops, you consider the Right having murdered them
We should have never been in that war in the first place and who got us into the war using a false narrative, the Bay of Tonkin lie, to enable a corrupt president to send troops to Vietnam? LBJ, that's who a Jim Crow Democrat.
Thank you General McMaster for this moving essay. I can remember when my parents called it "Decoration Day", and according to various stories it began as a day to remember the Civil War dead (especially on the Union side because apparently it started in Boalsburg, PA in 1864 before the war ended). At some point, around 1970, Decoration Day or Memorial Day was changed from 30 May to the last Monday in May, so that everybody could have a three-day weekend. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but now I'm not so sure...just seems to be another day for shopping (lots of Memorial Day weekend sales), slurping and eating and watching baseball on TV. Somehow all these three-day weekends have trivialized something that could and should bring us together...a shared history of sacrifice and purpose.
We called it Decoration Day and wore buddy poppies when I was a little boy in the 40s.
My parents also called it Decoration Day. And decorate we did. I grew up in cemeteries.
Over the past decade, questioning the feminist narrative has brought to mind the inequality of males being obligated to go to war --- and probably die there. This is a circumstance I cannot even begin to imagine, though that sympathy has been helped along by novels written by men who were obligated to go to war. Richard Yates comes to mind. And yet, when I bring this up in class, it's met with blank stares. Those born after Vietnam just don't get it.
What voluntary service did was divide us from what used to unite us. In those novels, the upper class men bonded with the lower class men. They were men hell bent on getting each other out of there. These days, this 'service' is remote to most people.
I recently renewed a friendship with someone whose father served in WWII, and her brother in Afghanistan. Her brother's tank got hit and his buddy died next to him. When he completed his service and returned home with a serious case of PTSD, his wife disowned him. Fortunately, he wound up with a great nurse -- who became his next wife.
To think we now have youth who claim to be "traumatized" by a pinch on the butt.
My brother was in the Marine Corps in Vietnam, Company E, 3rd of the Ist, if I recall correctly. He became buddies with Miles White, a bond formed quickly, as invariably happens in active combat zones. He watched young Cpl. White die from one of Charlie’s bullets. My brother named his son after Miles. I’ve visited his plaque at the Vietnam War Memorial wall in D.C. Today I remember Marine Cpl. Miles White. Rest in peace.
Word. To die for one's country is, after dying for one's faith in God, the supreme act of charity. Memorial Day is not celebrated in other countries. What a privilege to have a national public holiday set apart to honour these soldiers.
In Britain there is Remembrance Sunday in November to honor war dead. People wear a red poppy, observe 2 minutes of silence. Details: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Remembrance-Sunday
I remember, not long ago, the yard of the Tower of London filled with poppies in a memorable tribute to those of the United Kingdom's forces that died in the First World War to protect and perpetuate the concept of free and open governance of the people.
Anyone viewing that scene couldn't help but be respectful...and yes, proud...of those who gave their lives so others could live.
I thought this name looked familiar. He was the National Security Adviser under Trump, after Flynn was taken out by the Deep State for crimes Joe Biden and his people bragged about committing. He served multiple years in jail, after a lifetime of difficult and honorable service, because of people like John Brennan and James Comey. And possibly H.R. McMaster. I'm not going to refresh memory, but among other things, he agreed with the Russian Collusion hoax publicly. Given that it was always a hoax, that is either a very stupid thing for an intelligence professional to do; or a very dishonest one.
This is a core reality I can't understand: how and why do intelligent, brave and seemingly patriotic Americans sign on to patently anti-democratic authoritarian schemes, which often include highly profitable war ventures? Is it money? Do you fight for a while out of idealism, realize it's all BS, then take the first big check thrown your way? Was it always dishonest? I really can't tell. I suppose it must be a mixture.
But that many Americans who should know better are working hard to undermine the law and the Will of the People is beyond dispute in my opinion. And if more of them don't start speaking up and fighting back against their own, I can't see how we are anything but a paper democracy five years from now, if indeed we have not already lost.
These are hard truths. Tough to swallow. But I'm not asking anyone to die for their country, or parents to mourn their children, or children their parents. That mainly seems to me increasingly to be the people Eisenhower and Smedley Butler (who by the way was asked to lead a Fascist revolution in this country but refused) warned us about.
And I will name one name: Josh Hagar. He was killed by an IED in Iraq around 2006. It made his father sick with grief. I honor him today by demanding more from all of you. Suck it up and see the world as it is, not as you want it to be.
Food for thought... Thank you!
I wince at the loss of these fine young men. One can reasonably ask if their sacrifices were in vain, particularly in Afghanistan. But, I work with Operation 300 in Florida, and I can tell you the families of the fallen, and the volunteers who run Operation 300 are the finest of America. That such men, and the families they and their wives build, still exist gives me hope for a country that seems every day becoming unhinged; and casually, even gleefully, throwing away the birthright of freedom so many have fought for.