Memorial Day weekend
 

I hope everyone has a wonderful Memorial Day weekend. Take a moment to thank a veteran.
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4th of July 2019, in my elder son's neighborhood.

Technically Memorial Day is for those active duty folks who died in wartime. Veterans Day is for the rest of us.

Nitpicking, I know, but I'm uncomfortable with celebrating on Memorial Day, as I am with athletes wearing the flag as a cape after winning a game. But as Memorial Day has, over time, come to be regarded as a gateway to summer and a break from school, etc., I know I sound like a curmudgeon suggesting that it's a solemn occasion.

I am grateful that we veterans are treated much better now than my colleagues who served in Vietnam. I was too young to serve there, but did work with many fellows who were recent veterans of that war and witnessed the benign neglect they experienced, including from the VA. The VA has improved significantly over the years, especially here in Texas.

I find it interesting that even in the military during my career, nothing special was done to celebrate Memorial Day anywhere I was stationed. Veterans' Day was different in that regard. Memorial Day was just kind of the unofficial start of summer.

I spent 14 years of my career in the 82nd Airborne. The week before memorial day weekend they have All American week where everyone does sports and we have a division review and a jump at Sicily drop zone. All the old timers go to it. President Bush was at one review. I don't recall ever doing anything for veterans day.

Yeah, takes some tact to correct people who thank me on Memorial Day. I usually say something like "Hey, I survived."

I lost a few friends and school mates during and especially after Vietnam . Those of us that didn’t go or survived use this time to acknowledge those who gave the ultimate sacrifice. When I met a couple of Vets that survived Vietnam ,who I now have coffee with , I say “welcome home” . Should’ve been said some fifty years ago. For a lot of folks it is , as been said, an extra day off to welcome summer . I saw quite a few bikes out and about . I was off my bike trying to get my sciatica to calm down . Maybe by the weekend I will be back on the bike.

HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY exclamation ??? :foo:

Son retired last year after 24 ARMY years signed up in H.S. and went from Pvt. to WO4. His son is now ARMY Combat Medic Specialist also signed in H.S.

THANKS ALL to WOMEN and MEN

Just a memory of those veterans from the Greatest Generation....

As a kid (I'm in my early 60's now), my dad would always go to the Memorial Day service held at our local cemetery. Dad enlisted in the US Navy as soon as he could. He was in the Civilian Conservation Corp as a teenager in the mid 1930's. That took from Pittsburgh, PA out to the Painted Desert in Arizona (Painted Desert Inn project ). When he turned of age, he enlisted prior to the invasion of Poland in 1939. He was on a shakedown cruise of the USS St. Louis in the Caribbean when that occurred. When Pearl Harbor occurred, he was on shore leave in San Francisco and missed his ship when it pulled out, later catching it in Southern California. He had been at Pearl for several months just before. He physically survived the war but I realized how it changed him emotionally. He was demobilized within 20 days of the second atomic bombing at Nagasaki, in August 1945, so he was in for the full duration of WWII.

Skipping forward 20 years from then, I was 8 or so. He made it a point to always attend the Memorial Day service and took me where I could see my tough Dad visibly weeping for his fallen friends and companions. I still make an effort to attend a service. Now its me with tears in my eyes, both for those who made the sacrifice and for my Dad, who I still miss terribly even though he's been gone over twenty years. Rest in peace, "Boats."

When I was in the USMC, we never really celebrated it. We did our drinking and BBQ/ing. I guess in the back of our minds, it was us that didn't want to be memorialized eventually. We knew it was part of the risks we took when we raised our right hands. Thankfully, I was in during the 90's, and we never entered a situation in where we could lose someone.

The weekend before I go to the cemetery and place flags at the graves. And the weekend after I help remove them. I started doing this as part of my son's Boy Scout troupe and have continued when he aged out.

Not sure if "celebrate" is the right verb... I chose to "remember".

Personally i remember "Freddy" Joel Ransbottom. He was MIA in 1968 and his remains were found and came home in 38 years later.

https://www.oklahoman.com/article/29...after-38-years

I tell his story every year.
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