Memorial Day 2012, a day of remembrance, not self indulgence

Today is a day that we are supposed to memorialize our war dead. Our heroes and heroines who died in the line of duty while serving their country in defense of freedom. Instead, too many ignore the why of the day, to indulge in self-serving activities that have nothing to do with attempting to demonstrate their appreciation for the sacrifice of our war dead.


The veterans of foreign wars are all around us. We may never know who they are, we might note the hat that they wear to show that they served during a time of duress and war, or a jacket. There may be no outward appearance or sign of their prior service. We largely ignore them, giving lip service to their sacrifice by showing “appreciation” to our troops by enduring politicians self-serving speeches.

My father became a Marine at the close of WWII. He served on Okinawa in a Scout Recon Platoon, always referred to as “kid” by his platoon sergeant, never as Marine, because he was underage. In 1947, he was sent to China as part of the Allied Army of Occupation. While there, he spent 9 months as a prisoner of the Red Chinese. He and those captured with him, were beaten daily, suffered depravations, and told upon repatriation to forget it by the USMC, never happened. He was discharged and returned to Arizona, serving in the Army National Guard, until the Korean War, when he once again became a Marine for the duration. He moved his family to Alaska in 1954 upon his release from the USMC. He then again joined the Army National Guard, becoming Alaska’s first fiscal officer. My father did not go to Vietnam, but in 1968 was offered a commission as a Lt. Commander in the U.S. Navy, if he would take a two year tour to Camh Ranh Bay with the Seabees. He declined the offer.

My father’s experience was not really unique. He was of a generation of Americans who faced a terrible war that threatened the very existence of the United States. He continued to serve in one capacity or another with the military until his early 40s. Such service was a matter of course for his generation, and expected. Through my father, his association with aviation, his USMC and National Guard service, and his tenure as an Alaska Territorial and Alaska State Police Officer in the 1950s and early 60s, I was privy to a world of men and women who were of that generation who served in WWII and Korea, and through Civil Air Patrol, those serving in the Republic of Viet Nam.

When Iraq came around, my youngest son, after serving a five year tour in the USMC, had joined the U.S. Army Reserve and was called up to duty as a combat engineer NCO.

While working on a USMC firing range renovation in 2008 on Oahu, I had the sincere privilege to meet young Marines who had been wounded in action, most by IEDs. They had been sent to the unit responsible for the firing range awaiting discharge for their injuries. We were humbled and sobered to be in the presence of those who had done the job and had been severely injured.

Soldiers fight for their buddies. It is all about the guy next to them. Not about country, not about the color of skin, not about where one came from, not about religion, not about anything but doing one’s part, and not letting your buddies down.

The guys in WWII did not serve to see the U.S. become less. They served to end a threat. They did terrible things. They firebombed cities. They shelled cities. They killed soldiers and civilians. They fought a total war. They won. Since, we have put our troops in harm’s way, but our leaders have prevented them from winning.

Today, our troops are under the influence of those whose world view is now very much like the enemy of the 50s-80s. The former Soviet Union and communism.

We have a President who is a product of communists and hard core socialists. People who do not believe that the U.S. is a good place or that its society is unique in the world with our Constitution and our rule of law. People who do not value life, our culture, the preservation of language, our institutions, the supremacy of our Constitution, or the traditional family as being necessary to the preservation of our country and way of life. People who live in the past believing that the U.S. is a place rife with discrimination based upon color and ethnicity and unfairness. People who believe that they have the right to take from those that work and give to those who do not. That the Constitution is nothing but an outdated piece of paper in need of revision to reflect their progressive (anytime progressive is used, read communist) world view. What’s yours is theirs. Abortion, though a tool of eugenics and intended to be used as such against the African-American population, has become a “right” for women who put killing the unborn below protecting a whale. This is not the United States that my father and millions of Americans before and since fought to defend or who sacrificed their lives to protect.

Some of our young American who have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan and other places have given five years away from home and family. Some, much more.

There are Gold Star families in Palmer, Wasilla, and Eagle River.

When you see a uniform of our armed services, think of how much time you have given in service to your fellow citizens away from your family. And, remember, what they do is dangerous in of itself with respect to training and daily operations without being shot at.

Be thankful that there are such heroes and heroines willing to do the job of our military. Tell your kids that these men and women are there to protect them and mommy and daddy. Tell your children that those grave stones in our national cemeteries mark the final resting place of someone’s daddy, son, brother, sister, mother, or wife.

May God bless these men and women who serve and those who have served this Great Nation. They stood the line and deserve our respect.

Memorial Day should be a day of respect and quiet reflection.

Veterans' Day--Give thanks to our heroes

I am certain that I join Gov. Sean Parnell in expressing the thanks of my family to those serving and those who have served this great country. They are the thin red line that keeps us free and the barbarians from the proverbial gates/

We have vets who have done four tours of one year each, with sailors, Marines and airmen who have done equal time doing six months tours in country. The toll on them and their families is incredible and little appreciated by all too many.

I have seen the scars and wounds some of these young men bear from IEDs and VBEDs. They are simply incredible in the strong, positive manner in which they carry on in the face of their challenge in this life.

We owe them all a debt of gratitude that those safe and warm, who have never really been inconvenienced by this war, or any war, cannot appreciate, because of our inability to fully relate to their sacrifice.

The heat, sand, dust, rain, cold, snow, the itching from sweat, being rubbed raw by straps and equipment, blisters, lack of sleep, aching muscles, stink of unwashed bodies, insects, putting up with equipment and gear that is war weary, that fear in the pit of your stomach, and the adrenaline surge of the fight that cannot be imagined by those safe and warm back in the world of the good old U.S.A.—except where the gangbangers play and induce fear. The horror and sense of loss of one of your own who has fallen.

These guys and gals fight for their own, their sense of honor and duty will not let them fail their buddies. They go back in harms way time and again for their friends and comrades, not to cop out, not to let them down; to be there for them.

Then, there are the families. Those who are now Gold Star families who lost their loved one. Their sacrifice ongoing. That pain will never diminish. And, those whose loved one is damaged physically beyond our current medical technology to fix, and those damaged mentally from what they’ve seen and done. The families of those who go again and again in harms way who live that not knowing every day and who worry, but who themselves soldier on for their loved one.

Then, there is the damage to the families, those who divorce for whatever reason; too long away, one day too many of not knowing, of feeling that the unit comes first over the family, on and on. We know that situation all too well.

The greatest generation is not dead. They are wearing the uniform of the Untied States military. The best and greatest military fielded by any nation at any time in any age.

Our children have heroes as role models. All they have to do is to look up at the aircraft protecting our skies and hauling needed supplies to the troops; the grey ships on the world’s seas, and the bright red and white Coasties in our coastal waters and around the world; to look as far their next door neighbor with the “high and tight” haircut who stands tall in uniform; to the young man or woman in the wheel chair or in a hospital bed in a VA hospital; or to just look as far as mommy and/or daddy, brother, son, daughter, uncle, aunt, grandma and grandpa and great grandma and great grandpa.

That old man who shuffles along with bent back might have been a young Marine witness to Tarawa’s and Saipan’s horrors, a young Ranger or Paratrooper who survived D-Day when too many of their comrades did not, did the attack to the rear from the frozen Chosin; the old woman who might have been a nurse or a mechanic, or a pilot flying aircraft to the war theaters all over the world; or the grandma who was a nurse when the VC breached the wire and got as far as the field hospital. You don’t know until you ask.

Thank a vet and those in uniform for their service and sacrifice. Remember not to forget to tell them to thank their families on your behalf for their sacrifice, too.

May God bless our service men and women and our vets and protect those in harms way in far off lands.