Quote from Forum Archives on May 29, 2000, 10:26 pm

Posted by: hobar <hobar@...>

Thank you, Buck. This 'nam vet appreciates your thoughtfulness.

--
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The name of the Lord is a Strong Tower. The Righteous
run into it and are safe. Proverbs 18:10
Howard A. Grim mailto:[email protected]
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-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] <[email protected]>
To: [email protected] <[email protected]>
Date: Monday, May 29, 2000 6:44 PM
Subject: [CCMag] Off topic: Memorial Day USA

>
>Greetings,
>Today is Memorial Day (observed) and it is also my birthday. If it's OK, I
>thought I would send *you* a gift. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
>
>Buck
>
>
>
>Don't forget me, the fallen American soldier
>
>I peer upward, through the dark blue ripples of Pearl Harbor, and I watch
the
>tourists who visit my tomb in this sunken warship, and I wonder if they
will
>remember.
>
>I hear the crash of waves on the Normandy coast as they echo back and forth
>through a sea of white crosses - one of them mine - and I pray the freedom
>won at such a cost will be worn honorably.
>
>I lie amid a garden of stone at Arlington, revered by my country because I
>gave the last full measure of devotion, and I hope we have learned from our
>sacrifices.
>
>I am a fallen soldier, and this is Memorial Day - my day. Will you pause
from
>your holiday just long enough to reassure me?
>
>There are so many of me.
>
>I lie in the countryside of New England, mute evidence to the birth pangs
of
>the United States of America. I fought, I died, I fired the shot heard
round
>the world, to make you free. Can I rest in the knowledge that the Republic
is
>thriving? That it is a land of freedom for everyone?
>
>And I am here, beneath the gentle, sloping ground of Vicksburg, where warm
>spring winds twine around the rows and rows of markers, and visitors trace
>the writings on my headstone.
>
>But do they understand the message there? The hatreds and distrust of those
>days, the ones that split my country and tore me from all that I loved, are
>they gone?
>
>I lie beneath a mile of water, buried at sea after some battle whose name
is
>no longer important to anyone, and I want to know that I am not forgotten,
>and that a lesson was learned.
>
>Above me, the great ships of commerce pass. They don't still carry the lust
>and greed that led the world to war a half-century ago, and took me to this
>dark place, do they?
>
>I also lie in an unmarked grave somewhere in Asia, my loved ones knowing
only
>that I am missing in action, having never had even the assurance that they
>could mourn for me.
>
>I was proud to serve my country, and accepted my duty on the faith I had in
>my leaders. Can Americans trust their leaders today? Has war become the
hated
>thing it should be? Have the guns gone silent?
>
>Today, between the barbecues and beaches, think about me and what I hope I
>have given you.
>
>Honor me by nurturing and protecting all that is good about this country,
and
>I will lie in peace.
>
>
>By Jim Bishop, executive editor of The Victoria (TX) Advocate. Contact him
at
> [email protected].
>
>
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