Memorial Weekend

[ilovebabyjada]

Hey everyone, I just wanted to wish you all a great Memorial Weekend!!

i would like to encourage everyone to post pictures, or other memorial comments.

[ilovebabyjada]

hope you all had a great & safe weekend!

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In memory of those who have fallen.

Arilington National Cemetary

[sass]

Thanks for the posts, and the reminder of why we had bar-b-ques and an extra day off of work.

[Tyger]

Somehow, I missed this!!

I've been putting up flags around the yard and on the house, in memory of all those that have fallen, worked hard to protect our own, and have sacrificed so much. I've even gone so far as to get some of those solar lights, that are painted as the U.S. flag! LOVE 'em! Love the U.S.A.!!!

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From "The Thousand-Mile War, World War II in Alaska and the Aleutians," by Brian Garfield, about a largely forgotten campaign of WWII:

On a bombing mission over Japanese-held Kiska Island in the Aleutians, a B24 Liberator approached the target area. Captain Jack Todd was the pilot and Lieutenant Clark Hood was the navigator. "Jack Todd's bombardier cranked open the bomb-bay doors--and flak exploded inside the open bomb bay. Todd's Liberator blew up so violently that it crippled the two bombers flying to his left and right. . . . Todd, Clark Hood and the entire crew were gone."

From the same book, "[submarine U.S.S.] Grunion, under Lieutenant Commander Mannert L. Abele, sank subchasers SC-25 and SC-27 off Kiska and crippled a third ship. On her first war patrol, fresh from the construction yard, Grunion chalked up her victories and continued on patrol. . . . Commander Abele took Grunion after two enemy submarines, and on July 30 [1942] he evidently found them. He made a routine radio report early that morning--and was never heard from again. Grunion disappeared without a trace."

The Grunion had a crew of 70. Its wreckage was found in 2007.

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Well, it's Veterans Day coming up, not Memorial Day, nonetheless I found the following article interesting and relevant. Click through the pictures to see veterans' comments on their service.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/08/us/veterans-one-thing-irpt/

Veterans Day was originally Armistice Day, commemorating the cessation of hostilities of World War 1, which took place at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, 1918, and hence why Veterans day is on Nov 11th. Fighting continued right up to the last minute. Thousands were killed or wounded on that morning. American Private Henry Gunter was killed at 10:59am, age 23.

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http://www.cbsnews.com/news/world-war-ii-soldier-declared-mia-in-1942-finally-honored-in-new-york-hometown/

"Carroll Heath didn't have it easy growing up in the Great Depression. His father wasn't around, his mother was a patient in a mental hospital and he kept largely to himself. Soon after graduating high school, he enlisted in the Army and wound up in the Philippines, where he's believed to have died sometime in 1942.

"It was a short life that went largely unnoticed, even in Pvt. Heath's western New York hometown of Gowanda. For 70 years, he was the forgotten soldier, his name not listed among the town's war dead, not inscribed on a World War II memorial in the middle of town. . . . "