U.S. Senate
See Full Big Line
(D) J. Hickenlooper*
(R) Somebody
80%
20%
Governor
See Full Big Line
(D) Phil Weiser
(D) Joe Neguse
(D) Michael Bennet
50%
50%
50%
Att. General
See Full Big Line
(D) M. Dougherty
(D) Jena Griswold
(D) Brian Mason
60%↑
30%↑
20%↓
Sec. of State
See Full Big Line
(D) A. Gonzalez
(D) George Stern
(R) Sheri Davis
50%↑
40%
30%
State Treasurer
See Full Big Line
(D) Brianna Titone
(R) Kevin Grantham
(D) Jerry DiTullio
60%↑
30%
20%↓
CO-01 (Denver)
See Full Big Line
(D) Diana DeGette*
(R) Somebody
90%
2%
CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
See Full Big Line
(D) Joe Neguse*
(R) Somebody
90%
2%
CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
See Full Big Line
(R) Jeff Hurd*
(D) Somebody
80%
40%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
See Full Big Line
(R) Lauren Boebert*
(D) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
See Full Big Line
(R) Jeff Crank*
(D) Somebody
80%
20%
CO-06 (Aurora)
See Full Big Line
(D) Jason Crow*
(R) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-07 (Jefferson County)
See Full Big Line
(D) B. Pettersen*
(R) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-08 (Northern Colo.)
See Full Big Line
(R) Gabe Evans*
(D) Manny Rutinel
(D) Yadira Caraveo
45%↓
40%↑
30%
State Senate Majority
See Full Big Line
DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
80%
20%
State House Majority
See Full Big Line
DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
May 29, 2010 08:53 PM UTC
123 Comments
Great diary.
Well done.
I couldn’t do stars- that is a five-star post.
While pausing Monday – drink a toast to Al Reid and T.C. Caldwell. And try to come up with a way to explain to their widows and collective 12 kids. I will.
when I was 12 was serving vets at Great Lakes Naval Hospital. This was 1962. Lots was different.
My dad, his dad, his FIL, my FIL, his dad were all in military during wartime and all of them saw combat. They are not the only ones in my family. I am a vet as well.
My dad was what we call a ‘lifer’ (26 yrs). So was my brother (30). MY FIL sered 30 as did his dad. There has ALWAYS been a member of my family in the military since before this nation was founded. Some of those early one would today be called terrorists.
I have been to Memorial Day services EVERY Memorial Day of my life so far and also Vet Day services. Sometimes I go to more than one. Depends where I am. I agree with Dan that the location is not important. Not for me and not for the President. I am much more annoyed by those who think it is just a 3 day weekend. Last year an employee who shuld know better wanted me to decide that Veterans’ Day would be observed in such a way that it would be a 3 day. I don’t know how, but I calmly reminded her of her son’s service and the discussion that took place 30 yrs ago or so when it was decided that Veterans’ Day will ALWAYS be on 11/11.
In my community really the larger community issue is whether these holidays are for ALL those who died in service and ALL those who served or for only one whose father has turned his son’s tragic death into a reason for him to be excused for much abusive behavior.
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they might say “don’t worry ’bout me, I’m dead, I’ve got all I need. I’m not all that interested in parades or speeches.”
“But if you’ve got a spare hour, would you mind checking in on my comrade in arms who isn’t dead, but isn’t doin’ so hot, either ?”
“And if you have the time, could you volunteer to coach a baseball team in the city league ?
My son wants to play again this year, but there aren’t enough volunteer coaches, so he may not get to. I used to coach his team.”
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The President is honoring the fallen, just not at the “traditional” site. I have many problems with our current leader, but this is not one of them.
I reposted this with a link back here for all of my friends on Facebook who have been trash talking the CIC.
This is not one of them.
A big deal is being made out of this because there are many people, both within and outside the military, who think BHO is unfit to serve as commander in chief. Because of this predisposition, they will cling to even the slightest perceived misdeed to marginalize this president.
Politics don’t matter on Memorial Day.
Mea Culpa.
That’s why at the top of his post the OP coined a new phrase “Angry Right” and he is asking (sarcastically) where several conservative leaders are celebrating Memorial Day.
and since they are all (except Hannity) doing something for Memorial Day, it doesn’t matter. I actually think Sen McCain’s Flagstaff appearance is patriotic AND smart campaigning.
My point is that the only people who are hooting and screeching about where 44 is on Monday are in the Media…that, and a few dumbasses that are reposting the same stupid comments. I don’t seen anything from the Major Vet groups, and I certainly don’t see anything from the GOP.
until you started using Memorial Day to bash the right. Playing that kind of politics with Memorial Day is not appropriate.
isn’t politicizing it?
Dan’s just trying to get us as a group to remember the reason we have days like today to remember the soldiers, especially the fallen.
This thread is not the place to complain about the president.
Blow it out your fucking ass.
I’m sorry, but I can’t be more civil than that.
You obviously have some serious problems.
Your mileage may vary.
I appreciate your candor and your service.
You have every reason to be livid but I hope you can take some comfort in the fact that so many Americans all over the country agree with you entirely and will stop to remember what this day means and that what you say means a lot and is always appreciated by the people who read you here. All the best, with great respect, this Memorial Day.
Your posts are always informative, fair, and (often) funny. This one is particularly moving. Our servicemen and women couldn’t ask for a more articulate and stalwart advocate.
Thank you…from the bottom of my heart.
Do you attend the United Veterans Committee Meetings yourself? I am there every month. Would love to say hello in person.
This is one of the times I realize that something isn’t right, and I’ll reverse course and apologize.
My opinion is that the President has a disdain for the military, and for many of the things that I find to be patriotic. My opinion hasn’t changed. I don’t think he’s a bad man or evil, or Kenyan. Our philosophies seem to be diametrically opposed, but I assume he’d respect the fact that I’m still a good man, and a good citizen.
But – Memorial day isn’t about him, it’s not about me, it’s about sacrifices made by many others throughout the history of our beautiful country.
I made a mistake in shifting the focus away from where it belongs, so, sorry, everyone for my comments related to where he spends his time tomorrow. It’s truly irrelevant, and I see that now.
that in your apology you make a much more serious accusation than the original trivial one, just like Robert Jordan did.
My opinion of his job performance hasn’t changed, but Memorial Day is for fallen soldiers.
It’s not an accusation, it’s my opinion.
“if I offended anyone even though I didn’t say anything wrong ” apologies. And of course, besides his rightie spin machine induced “opinion”, I doubt that he could point to anything concrete that would differentiate this president from others he doesn’t accuse of disdaining the military
Get off his back. I think he said he’s sorry. Several times.
He’ll be back after the holiday, at which time we can engage LB as we always have. He’s an honorable man, and admitted that he messed up. No point in piling on.
about impugning the President’s attitude toward the military without offering a scrap if evidence for doing so. Sorry Ralphie. Even in his apology LB parrots despicable, baseless calumnies and he’s clearly not sorry about those. But I’m happy to “get off his back”. I freely admit it’s pointless. My bad.
I apologize for the timing, and for politicizing Obama’s activities on Memorial day. That was misguided, and that was an actual apology.
I’m not going to apologize for having an opinion, so Earnest and BC, kiss my squirrel.
Before we start getting too holier-than-thou about politicizing Memorial Day, let’s take a look back at past Memorial Days.
If you want to know where I’m coming from, how many of you freely admitted that you thought Bush was a disgrace?
Before we start getting too holier-than-thou about politicizing Memorial Day, let’s take a look back at past Memorial Days.
If you want to know where I’m coming from, how many of you freely admitted that you thought Bush was a disgrace?
From The Nation July 2008:
Some day, perhaps, you’ll get a clue. I won’t hold my breath.
Not mine.
But thanks for illustrating once again, your innate ability to take the clearest, easily understood statement and pervert it into something that fits your dystopic worldview.
Your world, not mine.
Reality. You should try it some time. I think you’d enjoy it.
Is that eventually, reality rubs up against the liberal agenda. The world works in a different way, holmes.
Sleep well.
but I didn’t vote for him. That would have been dumb.
any blind ideology that fails to be guided by some blend of reason, goodwill, and humility.
Understanding that we are interdependent human beings, living as active participants in a world comprised of nested and overlapping systems, vigorously pursuing our underlying values of liberty, equality of opportunity, prosperity, economic sustainability, justice, and compassionate mutual support, doing the best we can, using the best knowledge available, to face the challenges of a complex world, together…, that is the one approach that seeks to skillfully caress reality rather rub up against it.
Some call that “the liberal agenda.” I call it being a responsible citizen, and a responsible human being.
*Teh gays are out to get us
*A zygote is fully human
*Tax cuts are the solution to both a good and bad economy
*No regulation is good regulation–businesses should all be free to self-police
*Evolution is a sin
*Thomas Jefferson should not be taught about in school, but the ‘inventor’ of the yo-yo should
*Pre-emptive war waged on false pretenses is an American value
*Speaking Spanish should be banned in a land where we speak American
*International law and agreements are dangerous (unless they grease the wheels for multi-national corporations)
*Multi-national corporations are citizens, but people born here are not necessarily
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inserting a true statement concerning abortion in with a bunch of statements of questionable veracity.
The truth about our human essence will now fall into doubt through “guilt by association.”
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We disagree on that point BX
Working…alas.
the “eternal political ideological question.”
On at least one of the continua ranging from “the left” to “the right,” the debate is over how much government is the right amount of government. It’s a legitimate debate, but not one that should be reduced to blind ideological certainties.
The challenge is to concentrate power in just the ways and in just the amounts that allow us to best mobilize, channel, and implement our collective genius to mutual benefit, while avoiding doing so in the ways and amounts that stifle the exercise of that collective genius. We all recognize that some government is needed, at a bare minimum to defend our borders, to enforce property rights, and thus to facilitate a secure marketplace, which can then produce ample wealth. Most of us recognize that where to draw the line isn’t absolutely clear: That bare minimum is completely untenable in the modern market economy, in which those with access to specialized information can game the system at everyone else’s expense (e.g., Enron, and, more recently, the financial sector in general), and in which the externalization of costs leads to collectively disastrous outcomes if not internalized through government interventions.
Instead of being reasonable people of goodwill, engaged in the hard work of continually figuring out how and where to draw that line, we are divided into blind ideological camps, with those on the right insisting that “less” government is always better (which is clearly false), and those on the right, traditionally, not recognizing the constraints of limited resources, and the mischief of undermined incentive structures.
In America today, the right has won to the extent that the left’s mischief is mostly a thing of the past. We certainly don’t have a maximally efficient government (even considering the “natural” constraints on efficiency of government), but the right is not pulling us toward increased efficiency any more; instead, it is pulling us toward paralysis. The left has not transcended its foibles, but it is on a battlefield in which it can’t even get to a point where those foibles can be exercised; we’re just trying to counter the ideologically-informed paralysis inflicted on this nation, domestically, by the right.
It’s not that the underlying debate (and some others as well, that define the two poles) is not a legitimate one; rather, it’s that this country has been pulled so far to the right, in comparison to the rest of the developed world, that the left is now standing on top of mere sanity, while the right is pulling us toward insanity.
We need to find our way back to the legitimate debate over how to use government most effectively, and whether, in any given instance, applying the best analyses to the most reliable data, any proposed use of government increases or decreases our collective welfare. Reality most certainly doesn’t rub against that.
The last phrase in the fourth paragraph should read: “and those on the left, traditionally, not recognizing the constraints of limited resources, and the mischief of undermined incentive structures.”
I simply observed that what you labeled an “actual apology” wasn’t.
But you couldn’t help yourself.
Bash Obama on Tuesday. Honor the dead this weekend.
Sharing.
What’s up with that?
Are you talking about 2108? I’m not sure I’ll be alive for that election.
Or am I just being a dick?
Dan thank you for pointing out the serious issues versus the political play.
I write about Decoration Day every year at this time. The reason is I come from a long line of military volunteers. I grew up going to the cemetaries on Decoration Day to put flowers on the graves of my relatives and the graves of veterans not of my family.
This is the first year since I was appointed the Aurora Veterans Affairs Commission that I will miss the VAC Memorial Day ceremony. I am on the road to D.C. I will wear my medals as I toodle along on the highway tomorrow. My small way of offering tribute to those who have given their all to define and protect our country.
supremely honest and moving guest commentary if in today’s Denver Post, The Things They Carry in Afghanistan, on this Memorial Day. It’s by David Fennell of Littleton, a major in the U.S. Marine Corps stationed in Marjah, Afghanistan, as head of the Civil Affairs Group there. Before that, he served a tour in Iraq.
This year I’m off to the small ceremony at the WWII Memorial in Ketring Park, just outside the Littleton Museum to remember my Dad and his two brothers, all WWII vets and all gone now, Dad and his older brother within the last year:
http://www.denverpost.com/opin…
Great link. Enjoy the day.
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and its importance to US security back home.
By printing this, the Post is politicizing Memorial Day. By linking to it, BC is doing the same.
What happened to all that righteous indignation from yesterday ?
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It’s a slice of life, not politics, and I thought it was a pretty brilliant window into the world our troops live in. Once again, screw you, Barron. Now why don’t you write a letter to the editor, to Major David Fennel and to his dad to tell them all what assholes you think they are for putting this into the paper on Memorial Day. What’s that? You’ll take a pass? Especially with the Marine major? One more time… SCREW YOU.
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Whether something constitutes “politicizing” depends on who’s doing it.
Until you clarified, I thought it depended on how the sacrifices of soldiers were being manipulated to bolster one viewpoint or another. Muh bad.
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You might have noticed that I haven’t been writing about politicizing. This is Dan’s diary and that was his concern, not that I consider the piece I linked to to be a political piece. Last time I checked Obama was in charge and completely on board with the mission in Afghanistan anyway so the piece doesn’t deal with either pro or anti Obama views.
If you are referring to my recent disagreements with LB, none of those had anything to do with the question of politicizing. I was disappointed in him for turning into just another spewer of the latest phony talk radio garbage. So may I say, just one more time…SCREW YOU you little piss ant.
than “phony talk radio garbage”. Although I agree, it’s getting pretty bad these days with Randi Rhodes and Alan Colmes.
but I couldn’t be less interested in your half baked two cents.
..that the usual sniping we do at each other. I was hoping people would remember my points listed above, and talk about THAT.
Pols has already promoted my diary about Military and Veteran suicide, and I’m grateful for that. I was hoping for some debate on Military Sexual Trauma, what we can do for vets when they transition back to The World, and maybe even a few pledges of airline miles for Fisher House.
What I got was a series of comments and responses like, well….all the other ones on this site. I supposed I shouldn’t be surprised, as “we are who we are.”
I was hoping for maybe one thread that would be different. Guess not….
by bashing the “Angry Right”.
for proving his point.
….but I guess zeroing in on one phrase is a great way to keep yourself enraged.
However, if you’re one of the worshippers of the Angry Right Radio shows, and you reposted any of the mindless drivel they’ve spouted on the airwaves, please, by all means, continue to be insulted.
You also questioned the whereabouts of Boehner, McCain and Hannity. Ok, now those are some of the most polarizing people on the right. You can’t tell me you didn’t mean to provoke a political argument despite later dismissing it as not mattering. Obviously, if it didn’t matter to you, you wouldn’t have mentioned it.
I’ll take “mindless drivel” on the airwaves over yours on this thread. 😉
You make Libertad look like Einstein.
See my comment above.
I usually don’t crosspost, but you are such a fucking asshole that I need to make an exception just for you.
because it illustrates what an idiot the poster is. As I’ve said before, when you resort to profanity, you’ve lost the argument. It also is a perfect counterexample to the “angry right”. In my opinion, there is more anger and hate on the left.
Because if not I am personally offended.
“personally offended,” because Ralphie’s comments most certainly were NOT idiotic.
The argument, for lack of a better word, was “lost” long before Ralphie resorted to profanity. There is no arguing with you — you’re as enlightening as a brick, covered in excrement and flies, at the bottom of a very deep hole.
Read your signature line. It describes your behavior on this site, to a bj.
Another one. As far as I can tell on this site, everyone has sig line making fun of everyone else, so I think I’m fine there. And yes, I do get offended when people call me blowjob wilson. My name is Brian Joshua Wilson, may you long remember it.
No use in getting offended by it now.
Although technically my user name is an abbreviation of s3xypen15!!1!
The system dropped a bunch of characters when I tried to register it, so now I’m stuck with this nonsensical-sounding one.
“Sex Pee” is actually pretty kickass.
A-holes do seem to go to great lengths to be memorable (although then they seem dismayed when people recall the nature of their past behavior).
Have you found any evidence yet to support your various claims?
But the other one is closed. I gave you a bunch of evidence already, but here goes.
1) Already gave you a graph of climate data and discussed how the Climategate emails show that they purposefully tried to “hide the decline” in tree ring temperatures.
2) I have no idea why, but it doesn’t matter. My hunch would be that it takes a while to gather tree ring data from all over the world.
3) Already explained the revolving door going on here.
4) Ha! Don’t you remember the effect two summers ago when hurricanes caused a temporary stoppage in oil production at a few facilities?
5) This is basic math. If the WARMEST year was 1998, then it is COLDER now, and hence we have a decline. The temperature is cyclical.
6) Once again, I already explained how the funding game works. I am a mathematician who works on the types of models they use to model climate, and believe me the models are not sufficiently developed yet to predict with much certainty what is going to happen. There is a complex interplay of the atmosphere, oceans, sun, ecosystems, etc. My exact field is error estimation.
7) I already said that both environmentalists and the current lack of technology are preventing oil shale development. My point was that if/when we do have the technology, environmentalists will still block it.
8) Uh, this one is a no brainer. If we have more oil in oil shale than Saudi Arabia, and we use that oil, then we won’t have to use as much foreign oil. Duh.
9) As I said before, Iran is just one example of the many foreign countries we might have to buy oil from that could harm our national security.
10) I also already explained how many of these sensors are located in cities, or have been overtaken by development, increasing the temperature.
Happy now? I think I’m going to stop with this topic unless another thread opens up on this subject, because nobody else cares.
There are plenty of people here who work much more closely in actual climate science, not just “the types of models they use to model climate” (which sounds to me like weasel wording for “I know what an equation is too” rather than a claim of expertise).
As far as I know there’s no mathematical field called “error estimation.” That’s just something you do on the way to doing other mathematics. It’s like if someone claimed to be a computer scientist whose field of expertise is writing “for” loops.
You seem like the dishonest type, based on choosing the warmest year on record and claiming the warm temperatures today are a decrease, rather than acknowledging that the slight variations are basically noise. If you had any qualifications in “error estimation,” you would know this is a very unethical thing to do professionally.
It is neither oil nor shale. To say it has more oil than Saudi Arabia sets up a false equivalency, like saying there are more oranges in a Palisade peach orchard.
You actually said oil shale development HAS BEEN blocked by environmentalists, it was only after numerous people showed you to be the fool you are that your argument shifted to ‘by has been I meant might will happen some day maybe.’
It was colder in January 2010 than it was in August 2009–ergo a decline!
You should write to whatever Matchbook U you got your degree from and get your money back–seriously you got robbed.
Your sig line is ‘making fun of me.’
My last sig line was courtesy of your comrade. Ben Stein’s $$ “Yes, Twitty, I am an idiot.”
Every time you post, it’s kind of like I have two sig lines now.
Whatever the foibles of the rest of us, they don’t compare to those of people like you, and Libertad, and GE, and MD, and others whose contribution to the public weal is purely negative, in every way. Free speech comes at the price of abundant noise pollution, and it comes with the benefit of more lucid voices always ready to prevail over that noise pollution in the marketplace of ideas. To the extent that reason and goodwill are ascendent, you and those like you will be marginalized; to the extent that Organized Ignorance is ascendent, your voice will be respected and admired.
And I’m even more glad that you think I am an idiot.
I will wear that as a badge of honor for the rest of my life.
I think you would find very few people who would place me on the left. You’d have much better luck finding people who would brand me as someone who dislikes assholes.
You can place yourself into that description anywhere you want.
You’re neither right or left, just down in the gutter.
If you don’t like being called an asshole, then don’t be an asshole. It’s entirely within your control.
to what grandma or his middle school teacher tells him about using, horrors, salty language. He must think arguments are won by the one who gets the most extra points for being prissy. He certainly doesn’t even try to win them with verifiable facts or logic, with or without profanity.
you may have encountered this:
writing the briefest of captions will not do this photo justice. Please go here:
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2…
Thanks if you do.
Very powerful link. Thanks Dan.
Beautiful diary on your part and the picture and article in the comment are a wonderful tribute.
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The article was the first I’d heard that the corrupt and incompetent Superintendent at ANC was leaving. Although I’d left The Old Guard years before he took over, I took it personally that there was such a goof overseeing that facility, where I’d had a hand in hundreds of internments.
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My wife and I were driving back from Pueblo Lake this weekend, coming through CO Spgs, and I asked aloud, “I wonder if General Clark is still alive”. Known as “Big S” at Stalag Luft 3, he organized reistance, intelligence, food drops, built stages for plays, tirelessly worked to raise morale, fought with the Germans for better conditions, played an important role in “The Great Escape”, and was truly an exemplary serviceman.
I remember one story from his book, 33 Months as a POW in Stalag Luft III, where he tells of liberation day. It was chaos. The airfield where food and airlift was to to be provided lacked any leadership. He immediately took charge, weak from hunger, and directed where the landing strips should be (it was an open field), organized the supply lines to get food off the planes and to the prisoners, and got the weakest and sickest on the planes first. Truly an amazing man.
So, having got home, I went to the Academy site and this was the lead article when I searched for Stalag Luft III Archives:
http://www.usafa.af.mil/news/s…
May he rest in peace, and may all he inspired continue to inspire all service men to serve with honor, intelligence, dedication….and adhere to the values that make America great.
As I’ve said before, my father-in-law and General Clark served together as POW’s in that camp.
Can I ask you a question without causing you to get emotional about it?
I respect you, I like you, and I’m proud that we know each other in a roundabout way. This is not a gotcha, not an insult in any way.
Who do you feel that you speak for when you post here?
I’m going to have to step back from the keyboard on that one.
I’ve got my political views, but I check them in on Vets issues. (yes, I will jump on a certain party on certain issues…but I’ve pee’d on DeGette’s shoes enough that I don’t ever get answers anymore.)
I’ll get back to you.
And I really hope you know I ask this question with love in my heart.
And I can easily ignore the commentary that needs to be ignored.
And politics does not matter.
Translate that as anyone who disagrees with our god Obama needs to shut up. On Tuesday we will be issuing other reasons you should shut up and not criticize the most anti-american president ever to be served by the american people.
To capitalize “God”.
Douche.
You don’t capitalize god when you are referring to an entity that is obviously NOT God. Douche.
But maybe you think Obama is God. Double Douche.
Sybil, you really should get a new alias. You’ll never live this one down.
LB and I have our political differences, but I know he’s a stand up guy who believes in what he says.
You, on the otherhand…
Although 2 brothers of mine, my godfather, one of my aunts, a grandmother and two grandfathers served during war and three of them in very harry roles, on memorial day its all about my great uncle Tommy Donovan.
Tommy was in the 82nd during WWII, coincidentally the same division as my grandfather on my other side. Tommy had actually been drafted in one of the first draft classes in late 1940 or early 1941 before pearl harbor, after he had dropped out of college.
Now a little background. The Donovans were a blue collar family on the move, my great grandfather Danny (for whom I am named) was promoted to management under the condition that he convert–no Catholics in management. He started attending the episcopal church across the street, while his family still attended the Catholic church.
My Uncle Tommy was supposed to go to college and then medical school, But he was always a bit of a hell raiser–academics was always my grandmother’s thing. Unfortunately there wasn’t enough money for both my grandmother and my Uncle Tommy to go to medical school, so my grandmother became a nurse (and later served in WWII) and her younger brother Tommy started college–for a bit.
After he was drafted, he told my great grandparents the military suited him and it was teaching him discipline–after he did his tour he would go back to college. Then Pearl Harbor.
Because my Uncle had some college and had done well in his year in the service and they needed junior officers, my uncle got invited to attend OCS.
Lieutenant Donovan, who had formerly been a corporal in an artillery unit soon found himself commanding a couple of sections in the 376 Parachute field artillery battalion of the 82nd in Sicily and Italy.
My grandmother told me about him before she died. How tough he was for a little guy, how much they argued growing up (and how much she regretted it) and about the last letters he wrote at Anzio when he seemed to know they he was going to die.
Why do I write about a man who has been dead almost 60 years? Not just what happened in the war, but who he was. Because no one else will. Everyone who ever knew him is dead or nearly so. He never had a wife or children, no legacy to become part of a proud child’s declaration “my grandfather fought at XXXX,” no footnote in a family tree 100 years later as people proudly talk about how their family fought for liberty in the revolution or fought to free the slaves in the civil war.
As I mentioned before my grandfather served in the 82nd (in the 504 and 507), but he came home safe (if not sound) and had children and grandchildren that he knew and after his passing his children and grandchildren could tell stories to his great-grandchildren. Continuity.
But it could have easily been Harvey dead at Anzio and Tommy with generations to remember him.
When we ask men and women to die in war, we aren’t just taking their present, we are often also taking their future. Who will remember them after their mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters and those they served with who survived, are gone?
SSG_Dan had in mind in expressing the wish that we not politicize the day. Most of the rest of us haven’t managed it as well as you have. Thanks.
The day the left gets to pretend they care about our vets. The rest of the year they are spending their time running down the military, cutting their funding, reducing the amount of protection that our troops deserve.
I mean that sincerely.
“Making sure we don’t go too far left”… by being an asshole.
I meant “execrable.”
but I loved your story about your Uncle in Anzio. Brilliant. Very moving. I really loved that story, Danny.
Maybe you think that you have credible talking points, however, what you are saying has NO basis in FACT!
Here are just some of the ways that this administration and the Democrats in congress are helping the veterans. And, by the way, they are getting a lot more help than they ever got from GW. AND check the voting records of Republicans on Veterans issues. Very few of them vote in favor of the veterans:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog…
http://www.whitehouse.gov/issu…
Many issues were addressed in the Recovery Act, including better care.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog…
There has been more done for Veterans in the last 14 months than there has been since the original GI Bill!
So, do what I suggested above and check out these links and the voting records, then try to justify your uninformed post above.
Republicans talk a good game but they seldom follow through on veterans issues. Even McCain seldom voted in favor of veterans!
Republicans talk big but their actions speak louder than their lying words!
….but this one gets a response.
The common myth in Politics is that the Republican’t party takes care of the troops and vets, and somehow the Dem ignore and abuse them.
I’ve refuted this talking point so many times more than I care to mention. I can point specifically to Pres Obama’s campaign promises regarding the VA.
But let’s shift away from that. Let’s look at the actual voting record on Repubs on these very issues. And I’ll even make it easy for you.
In 2007, the repubs controlled both chambers of Congress, as well as the Presidency. So, this should’ve been the penultimate moment for funding for the troops and vets.
So, as a report card, let’s use the DAV’s system of rating votes by Congress on these issues on a scale of 0-100. I like their system because A) I’m a member, and B) among other processes, they specifically contact members of Congress that they support a bill, and they want Reps/Senators to vote for it.
So, what was the average record of the Republican’t Party under these highly favorable and partisan conditions?
ZERO.
No, not even an F. ZERO – the majority of the “take care of the troops party couldn’t even muster an F. The exact count with this awesome score was 200….70.4% of the 284 members of the GOP in the House and Senate. One member managed to score 83 – but he’s not a Repub anymore (Specter.) One got 60, six got 50, and none of them got 100%
So, 2.8% of Republican’t members of either chamber support the troops.
Which adds up to (and I’ll spell it out) SHUT THE FUCK UP.
I used to have links for a few of them, then when I tried to find them in 2008 DAV must have changed their website and even searching it didn’t produce much.
Could you provide new links or let me know where I could find them?
Thanks
but the access of voting records has gotten harder, not easier as this website has aged. Right now, you can only see a member of Congress’ record if they’re still in office.
STILL a great website, though the senior leadership of the DAV needs to make the thing at least 2008 tech…
.
Is there an organization that better represents active duty soldiers ?
Don’t say AUSA; they are corporate shills.
.
IAVA is a great organization that has been lobbying congress for several years for Iraq & Afghan military, active duty & vets.
There are probably many others.
…but Paul Rieckhoff is starting to live too much like a Rock Star. He needs to focus more on the lobbying and organization, and spend less time in LA and on TV.
He also gets a HEAT round directed at him for being one of the Media Pimps hooting about Pres Obama not being at Arlington…
And I have wondered if he was starting to think a little too much of himself. His hooting about Arlington is something that I intend to complain about.
This comment made me think that the President was thinking about Biden when they made those arrangements:
May 31, 2010 at 5:00 PM EDT
“And As a Nation, We Pause Today to Remember Them”
In what he called “the greatest honor of my public life,” the Vice President took part in a wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknowns and spoke at the Memorial Amphitheater at Arlington National Cemetery.
…I’ll ask my CPT buddy in Carson next time I wander down south.
I was never a fan of NCOA either.