It's a weird Memorial Day here weather-wise. The temperature isn't supposed to get over 80 and the National Weather Service is calling for 100% chance of rain, showers, and thunderstorms with 2 to 3 inches of rain possible. This has been an unusually mild May, with only a day or two hitting 90. Ordinarily by now, the last week of May, 90 is an everyday thing and the afternoon thunderstorm system has started.
With 100% chance of rain, there will be no barbecue today, and probably not much of anything productive. Good thing I just put fresh batteries in my UPS for this computer and the house internet/video streaming hub.
I've run this picture more than any other on my blog. I guess it resonates with me.
In a final act of loyalty, Hawkeye, the dog of slain Navy SEAL U.S. Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Jon T. Tumilson walked up to his fallen master’s casket during the funeral in Rockford, Iowa, and then laid mournfully down beside the body for the rest of the proceedings [Note: Petty Officer Tumilson was one of the 30 killed in Afghanistan in the shoot down of Extortion 17 which the families blame squarely on the Obama administration - SiG]
I make it my ritual to pick a campaign or location and read the Medal of Honor citations resulting from that.
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Thanks to Robert Heinlein, I always read or listen to "The Ballad of Roger Young." And then read the history behind it. Roger Young was a Sergeant who was going deaf and blind, and took a reduction to Private to stay with his squad. And died for them in New Georgia in the Solomons.
Not even dusty. Makes me cry every time. Reading "Starship Troopers" (not that horrid film...) does it, too.
Operation Red Wings (Afghanistan) was one of a number of botched situations and I could rant but I won't. Suffice to say that we all owe a great deal to those people who put it all on the line for us. We tend to recall personal friends or the storied, but there have been millions of slain that took this country from British/French/Spanish rule to where it is today and we owe each one of them.
ReplyDeleteThink of Obama crowing "You didn't build that". Of course, Barky wasn't referring to the veterans who gave all. But they, who put it all on the altar of freedom did make it possible. So we have Memorial Day. It's not as much as they deserve, but it's our way of doing what we can to turn hearts in that direction every year.
This is the first time I've ever heard him called that; I guess it's fitting as it comes of having too much dog for breakfast
ReplyDeleteThat is so moving. God/Dog. There's a reason for that.
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