Thursday, November 11, 2010

Veterans Day 2010


Thank you to all of our Veterans, on Veterans Day today.

Take a moment to remember our Vets today, and if you get the chance, thank one in person.

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And a story and info here about the Veterans History Project, being pushed now by Mike Johanns, among others.

25 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well Done!

Proud to have served said...

Great Pic Sweeper.

Thanks!

Pol Observor said...

Nice non-political post Sweeper. Too Bad JFK and Bold Bunch published this today.

"As we honor our veterans today, it is important to note that we also must honor our gay and lesbian veterans by repealing DADT"

Jane just doesn't get it, does she!

Brian T. Osborn said...

A lot of good Americans, of ALL kinds, gave a lot so that we could have the freedom to argue with one another on blogs such as Leavenworth Street. They were Democrats, Republicans, Libertairians and probably even a few Socialists - of every race, creed and heritage - educated and illiterate - gay and straight.

To claim that any one of them was any less valuable than the next one is to offend them all. If you are an armchair patriot that pontificates on the worthiness of one veteran over another based on your own biases, then you have spat on each and every one of us that did serve.

Anonymous said...

A salute to all public servants who serve our country through government employment including the military. Thanks you!

Anonymous said...

A government job is nice.
But don't pretend that it's the military.
Today is VETERANS Day.

Anonymous said...

Wow 12:35, can't you put away the hate for just one day? Sad

Anonymous said...

That's what I'm trying to do: Give ONE DAY to Veterans. Instead of making it some pan-government employees day.

Anonymous said...

THANK YOU VETERANS --

we are free because you were brave!

Proud Vet, Public Servant and American said...

To 1:02. I would hope that we can give respect and appreciation to our veterans year round. Crawl back in your hole and you can start bashing government as the root of all evil again tomorrow.

Anonymous said...

God Bless America

Anonymous said...

Well Done! Bless all our Veterans including my father a WWII Veteran.

mTm

Anonymous said...

Thanks to our vets, including my Dad. I'm grateful for every day I wake up in the free country you protected.

Bob Loblaw said...

Happy Veterans Day to ALL Veterans!! The sacrifices these guys make are beyond comprehension. My wife and kids miss me when I'm gone for 2 or tree night. Imagine what these peoples families go through. May God watch over you and your families.

Anonymous said...

Oh, kiss my butt Brian. I served, too. With a lot of great guys and a few jackasses. My guess is you probably would have been one of the jackasses. What SS did was to honor all vets. What Jane Kleeb (of the Hastings Scott Kleebs) did was to put cast a political pall on things unnecessarily. Turn veterans day into a political event. Spare me the lecture. Upwards of 90% of the vets I know would feel like the service is being spat upon by people who are trying to cram a repeal of DADT down everyone else's throats.

Anonymous said...

Hey, 12:47, 12:35 is right. It's VETERANS day. Not government employees day. What 12:22 did was a deliberate slap at the military and veterans by upstaging the designated honorees with a sappy little "thanks to everyone" speech. 12:35 is absolutely right to object.

Proud to Have Served said...

So if you are an active duty, Guard/Reserve, member today what do you think you will be on the day you seperate? IF those serving now see there is anything other than respect and honor for their being there and serving, what impact does that have.

So it isn't a Gov't celebration!

And why do the splinter groups want to be included as a called out special part of the whole? Can't they just say thanks to the Military and be done with it?

Grundle King said...

BTO, help me out here...doesn't "Veteran's Day" honor ALL veterans, regardless of their race, creed, color, and orientation? The point that Pol Observer was making is that it's pointless to say 'we should honor our veterans', then turn around single out a single group of veterans...because they're all veterans!

As such, we should honor all of them for their sacrifices.

And we should do so more often than 1 day a year.

Brian T. Osborn said...

Jackass @ 12:21,

Yeah, you probably would have considered me a jackass back then. You would have probably also been one of the guys that I sent back to his squadron for demotion and punishment for being a shirker.

Oddly enough, my command thought enough of me to make me a CDI inspector for three separate work centers and Sailor of the Quarter ... twice. They did so as I filled a Chief's billet while I was a lowly 2nd class petty officer. Oh, and Adm. Wm. Crowe (then CinC-AFSE, later Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) wrote me a nice little letter of commendation for some work I did as a liaison between the Italian and U.S. authorities following an EA-6 crash near Palermo back in '79. Not bad for a jackass, eh?

EVERY veteran that served wasn't an angel, but every one of them deserves our respect. Too many people are quick to jump on the knee-jerk bandwagon, rejecting the service of gays and lesbians.

For whatever reason, an inordinately high number of those capable of translating the languages used by Al Queda combatants happened to be gay. They have been turned out of the service due to their orientation, and that has probably cost as dearly in our capacity to prosecute those wars. It has also, no doubt, resulted in many more unnecessary casualties.

Grundle King,

I agree that we need to honor our military, ALL of them, more than just once a year. Unfortunately, folks like Anonymous Jackass would rather we did so without including the gays. I think Jane's point was that we do need to include them. DADT precludes that.

One of my big concerns is that, unlike during wars such as WWI and WW2, the American people seem unaware that we have are fighting on two fronts. There is no shared hardship, such as the Greatest Generation lived through with rationing, liberty bond drives and such. To the casual observer, one wouldn't even realize that America is at war.

Anonymous Gratitude said...

Nothing warms the heart of a Vet like seeing the words "Thank You" typed in a post from an anonymous blogger. Almost makes it worth it.

Anonymous said...

Brian boasts: "Oddly enough, my command thought enough of me to make me a CDI inspector for three separate work centers and Sailor of the Quarter ... twice. They did so as I filled a Chief's billet while I was a lowly 2nd class petty officer. Oh, and Adm. Wm. Crowe (then CinC-AFSE, later Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) wrote me a nice little letter of commendation for some work I did as a liaison between the Italian and U.S. authorities following an EA-6 crash near Palermo back in '79. Not bad for a jackass, eh?"

Brian, that's like wearing your HS letter jacket around campus in college. I'm sure your parents would be so proud of the fat slob you've blossomed into since your discharge. (I saw you on that Bruning video -- pathetic.)

And I'm not buying your bit about language interpreters. First of all, I know several people who have "volunteered" to be translaters for U.S. Forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. These are Iraqi and Afghan Nationals and so the military DADT policy wouldn't apply to them. Second, muslim men don't go around advertising if they're gay. They'd be fully compliant with DODT because they sure wouldn't talk about it if they were gay. And, for the record, the men I've know who have volunteered for this duty (they get paid, so "volunteer" is maybe not the right word) were either married with children or had live-in girlfriends and children. I seriously doubt there was a gay among them.

Nice try, though, jackass.

Anonymous said...

1:16 (or jackass #1). Typical right-wing thought process. Since you don't personally know any gays who are translators, you doubt there are any. This anti-intelligent, faulty reasoning will be the downfall of the country if not checked. Try using the google, and you'll find plenty of articles detailing the loss of military Arabic translators because of DADT.

Grundle King said...

BTO, Jane's point was not to honor gay veterans...her point was to honor them for being veterans AND ALSO for being gay.

Let's take the picture that Sweeper posted, for example. Can you look at that picture and tell me which of those service men and women are straight?

If you can, then I'd like to know how. As for me, I sure can't tell which ones are straight...and without being able to discern that, there's no way to discern which ones are gay. So by honoring all of them, the straight and the gay are all honored equally. Now, can you tell me what, exactly, is wrong with that?

And which two fronts are we fighting on? Didn't the current President declare 'mission accomplished' by announcing the end of combat operations in Iraq?

Anonymous said...

anon. at 3:38, I followed your suggestion and, really, there's not much there. Just some blurbs from MSNBC and some place called "Democracy Now" from 4 and 5 years ago. Nothing from any reputable news source. And certainly nothing that backs up the claims of A-hole el numero uno (a/k/a your buddy Brian.)

Anonymous said...

11:18, maybe you ought to check the NY Times, though you probably don't consider that a reputable source. Learn to google better. It's been in the local newspapers also.