Us Memorial Day, Topic War, and Dead

Us Memorial Day only On Memorial Day, President Barack Obama will attend an anniversary ceremony at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. It's a long custom for presidents to honor the nation's war dead. However, it's a sure bet that he will not honor millions of casualties of war who are not remembered--their families will never be called "Gold Star Families," even though war killed their soldiers. That's because many veterans come home alive but are so morally injured that they kill themselves because war destroyed their core moral identity and stole their will to live. 

Memorial Day is the time when pundits and politicians alike stand and proclaim, "One life lost is one too many." Despite their best intentions, the statement is a hollow cliche that reflects a world as we want it to be versus the realities of the world as it is.

U.S. President Barack Obama plans to honor the country's war dead by spending the Memorial Day holiday Monday with veterans and their families, as communities across the nation host their own festivities.

The president will visit the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, as well as Arlington National Cemetery just outside Washington, where soldiers have placed American flags on nearly 260,000 graves.

The first large-scale observance of what was originally called Decoration Day took place at the cemetery in 1868, three years after the bloody Civil War that killed more than 600,000 people.

 It is an empty response that lacks eloquence and true understanding. It falls desperately short in its attempt to honor those who have laid down their lives for their country or pay tribute to their families who have truly sacrificed for our nation. But what does it all mean in the context of sacrifice, commitment and dedication? A life lost impacts a family, their friends, comrades and the community they represent. One life represents so much more than a number; it is reflective of a community, a county, a state and our nation. 

We never dreamed anything could happen to her. We thought she was safe, teaching aerial gunnery, trying to do the right thing. She believed in it so much, said Bagot, who lives in Uptown New Orleans now.

Historians from the National World War II museum recently recorded Bagot’s memories in order to feature Germaine’s story among those of service members lost during the war.

The fallen will be remembered this Memorial Day during the museum’s annual tribute, which includes concerts of patriotic music and a memorial ceremony, said Clem Goldberger of the World War II Museum.

Our military has always answered the call of our nation. Service members take an oath to "protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic," which embodies the ideals of America. They acknowledge the gravity with "so help me God." Some go on to pay the ultimate sacrifice that transcends human logic. Everyone who serves gives some, while some give all.

When Germaine Laville turned 16 in 1938, her family and friends celebrated in the yard of their home in Plaquemine. It was May, and her younger sister, Betty Bagot, now 86, still remembers the pink roses blooming on the arbors.

Six years later, loved ones gathered again in honor of Germaine, nicknamed Bebe, but this occasion was sad. A member of the Marine Corps Women’s Reserves, she died in a fire in June 1944 while teaching at the Marine Air Base in Cherry Point, N.C. She was 22.

The war touched every aspect of life. “I went to LSU. There were no men, just women and 4Fs,” she said, referring to men who were ineligible to serve. Food and supplies were rationed, although with so many children and a garden on their property, no one went hungry.

“My brothers loved sugar and ketchup, and we never had enough of that,” Bagot said. “Of course, nylon stockings were a no-no and cigarettes were pathetic — you couldn’t get the kind you wanted.”

Bagot remembers the family was sitting at supper when the phone call came from the Plaquemine Western Union office. Germaine had been teaching when the building caught fire. She escaped, but ran back inside when she heard a call for help from a fellow Marine. She perished in the fire.

The whole town of Plaquemine turned out for the funeral. “It was a beautiful funeral. They even had an honor guard,” Bagot said, weeping.

Germaine was precocious. She skipped a grade and headed to LSU at 17, joining the sorority Alpha Chi Omega. She graduated at 20, eager to join the war effort on behalf of her family because the boys were all too young.

Hamidullah Zaker, Afghanistan Commando, Emerges As Hero of Kabul Battle

When half-dozen Taliban militants stormed the Intercontinental Hotel here last June in a bloody overnight siege, a photograph of a team of NATO special operations soldiers, their hands and clothes still bloody as they strode confidently away from the combat zone, became the iconic photograph of the battle.

On Sunday, after yet another drawn-out street battle with Taliban militants, this one in downtown Kabul, a similarly emblematic image was taken of a confident, rugged, and blood-strewn commando emerging from a hazy battleground. Only this time something was different: the hero was Afghan.

For days after the fighting, Afghans in Kabul appeared to bask in the glory of one of their own taking the spotlight; they changed their Facebook profile pictures to that of the unknown commando and printed thousands of flyers to post around the city.

It's the sort of shift -- in both tactical capability and public perception -- that Afghans seem ready to embrace, and American officials eager to see.  CONTINUE . . . . .

Suicide explosives Car Bomber in Baghdad

An explosives-packed Car bomber suicide killed at least 32 people and injured about 60 in a predominantly Shia Muslim district of the Iraqi capital Baghdad.

 

A security official told Reuters the bomber had initially attempted to attack a police station.

Attacks in Iraq have risen since US troops left last month, with 16 people killed in attacks on Thursday.

Police officials said the blast occurred at 11:00 a.m. in the predominantly Shiite neighborhood of Zafaraniyah, where mourners had gathered for the funeral of a person killed the day before. They said 65 people were wounded in the attack, including 16 policemen.

Hospital officials confirmed the death toll.

Across Iraq, at least 200 people have been killed in a wave of attacks by suspected insurgents since the beginning of the year, raising concerns that the surge in violence and an escalating political crisis might deteriorate into a civil war.

The blast occurred as mourners passed by an outdoor market headed toward a hospital in Baghdad's Zafarniya district to recover the bodies of three relatives shot the night before in the western part of the city, the officials said.

The violence has raised concerns about the ability of Iraqi security forces to ensure order, particularly after the United States withdrew troops at the end of 2011.

The situation has been further inflamed with a political bloc loyal to radical, anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr calling for the dissolution of parliament and early elections.

Friday's blast is the second deadliest single attack in Iraq this month.

The last U.S. soldiers left the country Dec. 18.

Bomb blast killed 5 Police soldiers other 5 in Afghanistan

Official sure of Suicide bombing kills 10 in Afghanistan, A suicide bomber blew himself up Sunday during a funeral in northern Afghanistan, killing 10 people, including a member of the national parliament, a government spokesman said.
The attack occurred as mourners were leaving after the end of the funeral in the town of Talaqan, said Faid Mohammad Tawhedi, a spokesman for the governor's office in northern Takhar province. Fifteen people were injured in the blast, he said.
Suicide attacks are rare in Takhar province, which is located 155 miles (250 kilometers) northeast of Kabul and is considered one the nation's calmer regions.
An Afghan government spokesman says 10 people were killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up during a funeral ceremony in northern Afghanistan.
He says the dead included a member of Afghanistan's national parliament.
Separately, NATO says one of its helicopters crash landed in Nahr-e-Saraj district of Helmand province on Sunday after taking small-arms fire from the ground. There were no injuries among the crew.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack. But over the past year, the Taliban have repeatedly struck at prominent government figures. In September, a suicide attacker killed Burhanuddin Rabbani, a former Afghan president and head of the nation's peace council.
A faith source told that’s a roadside bomb blast killed five Police soldiers in eastern Afghanistan Wednesday, NATO and a Polish official said, in the deadliest single attack for the Police military there.
Police spokesman Jacek Sonta said in Warsaw that the soldiers were in a convoy headed to Rawza, in eastern Ghazni province, when it struck the bomb.