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Edited on Tue Nov-11-03 04:38 PM by JohnKleeb
:(
I planned to write an article on Veterans day and was gonna send it but I will give you my thoughts and share some quotes. I personally am too young to be a veteran but I hold veterans in the highest regard as a near pacifist. The books that have influenced me about serving in one's country are endless. All Quiet on the Western Front and Flags of Our Fathers personally have been particualry influential. I will tell you this as I stood in the library this morning as my watch struck 11:11 I thought the war is done but it wasnt, I thought about how that war should have ended it all but now the weapons used then now look like children's toys. Honor the fallen and the living I ask, veterans are everywhere, you may be one, your dad may be one, or your uncle or grandpa and these brave people are ever the humble, they dont call themselves heroes. Allow me to use some quotes.
"He fell in October 1918, on a day that was so quiet and still on the whole front, that the army report confined itself to the single sentence: All quiet on the Western Front. He had fallen forward and lay on the earth as though sleeping. Turning him over one saw that he could not have suffered long; his face had an expression of calm, as though almost glad the end had come."
Do I walk? Have I feet still? I raise my eyes, I let them move round, and turn myself with them, one circle, one circle, and I stand in the midst. All is as usual. Only the Militiaman Stanislaus Katczinsky has died. Then I know nothing more."
"I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow. I see how peoples are set against one another, and in silence, unknowingly, foolishly, obediently, innocently slay one another."
The following excerpt and paraphrase is from flags of our fathers by James Bradley page 231.
A blast. Mike Strank did not wake up. He had been hit not by a Japanese enemy but by an America destroyer. The shell hit Mike right in his heart. The others recall how they would have taken his place. LB Holly said "Mike you are the best damn Marine I ever knew. Harlon received Mike's watch. And then the war went on.
the following is another paraphrase from the same book, page 326
One visitor in the fall of 1948 was President Harry S Truman on his amazing reelection bid. He went in to Vasil and Martha Strank's home they had worked so hard for, and he noticed Mary, Mike's sister and got down on his knee and said it was an honor to meet your parents.
RIP to all those who have fallen: past, present, and hopefully not the future
You are ever the brave, I brought Strank as many of you know is a relative so when I read about him and think about Veterans, I think about Johnstown, the home of my grandparents birth. Lemme just thank all you who have served. I wish I could see it through your eyes so I would be wiser in the end. Thank you.
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