Quantummist's blog: "Politics"

“Letter Home” By Paul R. Mays 8/9/2007 Mom and Dad, If you are reading this it means I’m not coming home. I am writing this letter because my unit and I are about to insert north of Baghdad in a strike on a bomb making factory that’s making IED’s and it come time for some payback. Mom, I will miss your blackberry cobbler when dinners done and all the little things that you do when I’m home that makes it a place of love and family. I know this will hurt you to the soul but I want you to understand that I and many others knew what we were doing and my eyes also water up, not because of what we deal with here but for what you will have to endure if you get this letter. I only wish I could take the pain from your heart so you could feel nothing but joy but I know that joy is the furthest feeling from your heart at this moment. But try to remember the moments we shared when you taught me of love and family. I have taken that with me in every mission and it sustains me when the hot nights close in around me. You and dad are as much a part of every mission as I am. You step with me from the chopper as we hit the ground and can take pride in giving me the life than I can now put on the line for my country and fellow brothers in arms. The support with sending the packages with all the little things you sent for all the guys in my unit gave us all many hours of fun and joy and all the guys eyes light up when one arrives. So as you continue your life remember the good times and don’t dwell on this moment. I love you with all my being and only wish I could have felt one more pat on the head or kiss on my cheek but I will take every moment with me as I enter the place where so many of my brothers wait in a place I hold in Honor. Dad, you spent your life working to raise me and teaching me that sometimes a man has to stand when other run. You taught me the true meaning of Honor and I have held that in my soul since I was a small boy. Its now time for you to stand tall and help mom through times time as I think she will take it hard and needs you to hold her as she cries. But don’t feel to bad about my not coming home as I fell as I wanted, serving a country that you taught me to love. Every time we deploy I think back to hunting deer in the fall with you showing me how to handle a weapon and track in the snow. I still hear the words you used to tell me about those in our families past that fought in WW2 and WW2 and you in Viet Nam. The stories you told of your time in combat and how you made me understand that when boots hit the ground the fight is for the guys next to you not some big picture. I know this letter will rip at your heart but stand strong as mom will need your strength and when the time comes remember that you were with me during every mission and you can take pride in me standing for my country and family. You were right that war is an ugly thing but as you have told me all my life there are times when a Man must stand his ground for a greater good than just his own little life. I will miss those long talks in the woods as we wait in the morning dew for the first break of day but I want you to remember that what I do is my choice and I will wait until you also enter the halls of Honor with me so we can walk the mornings hunt together. I love and have loved you both all my life and was made the man I am by your teachings and love from the day I gazed at the night sky and asked about the world around me to the day I put these words to paper. If you stop to remember me in the future don’t forget to remember those that stand beside me as we are here because our families taught us that sometimes it requires men leave their blood on the field of battle for the country, people and family we leave behind. With all my love, Rickey

Eric commented the following: “So what are your specific disagreements with the reasoning between the 4th Geneva Convention? While one behind all of them, I believe, is that it is intended to prevent escalation, you already assume that there is no hope for any other end to this war (it does seem to me folly; it also forgets that there are factions in enemy leadership that can be encouraged and discouraged by our actions, and it forgets, in related manner, the principle of "self-fulfilling prophecy". I admit you have some evidence on your side (gah, I do remember what happened to a fictional would-be ex-terrorist leader who tried to bring in factions to make peace on the TV show 24 recently- killed by our side, if accidentally) but not sufficient that I find compelling. “ Well stated Eric so I though I would Blog my answer and response as a way to debate the issue and I also understand I have an advantage due to it being my blog and your comments here are rather limited due to allowed keystrokes from comments while I can ramble on. But feel free to email me with longer views and I’ll do as here and post the entire text. As for my disagreements with the Convention I have none from an intellectual stand point and find them a fine attempt at controlling the ciaos of two enemies dukein it out. But it brings to mind an analogy of two boxers one that follows the Marcus of Queensbury Rules, While his opponent is allowed a baseball bat , allowed to bite scratch and call in a couple of friends to hold the fair-minded rule abiding boxers arms . The fine gentleman will receive cheers for his Honor at following the rules as he lies bleeding to death at center ring. The Convention can only stand if it’s duplicitous. Both sides must abide by the complete Convention or the Convention is a suicide pact. In order to make the decision to abide by the rules you must know your opponent. If our good guy boxer knew the other guy had used a baseball bat and buddies in every fight he ever fought he might very well suspend those rules for the next bout… Myself I would bring a gun to the match and screw the rules. I have done a great deal of study of our enemy with one thing in mind, My Son. He will be in harms way and knowledge of the folks he faces is of vital importance to me. This is not the Nazi’s we are facing, as they were a specific uniformed enemy. Even then we fire bombed cities and killed millions because they did it first and we targeted civilians as they did. But because they followed most of the rules we also followed most of the rules. We treated captured solders pretty well over all even when some on the other side didn’t follow the same rules. This enemy is not in uniform so we cannot distinguish direct combatant from supporter or a civilian that just wants to get through the day. That’s not our fault. It those that set up shop upstairs from a mom and pop shop who are at fault. This death cult by its very nature has shown by history it must destroy western civilization and I fully understand why. The basic principal of Islam as followed by the majority of Muslims is a view that Sharia Law should be followed and this must be enforced by force. If we just live life and do our western way of life there are some that would be tempted to follow suit. Just the fact that we live in a world where our way of life causes some to wish for freedom the fanatic portion see us as attacking just by living in our freedom. In Iraq we hear of Sunni fighting Shiite in a civil war but recently we have found that the car bombs are by the same folks that brought us 9/11 faking a civil war and killing their own in order to make us walk away. This enemy has done this many times in history and there has never been a way to come to an agreement. We have generations that have been brought up to do but one thing and that is kill You and Your Family. To the ones we have captured, and got to talk , that is how personnel they see it. Now it is possible that more moderate Muslim groups and countries could control this minority and change the outcome so we could come to some peaceful accord but look at what history has shown. When Milosevic was wiping them from the earth none of the Middle Eastern countries came to their aid and it was the west that saved them. In the Soviet Union the Chetsnians were being slaughtered and the Middle Eastern countries never attempted to intercede. While we try to be the nice guys and save them from those that have learned the hard way what this enemy has done in the past we have only helped our enemy want to attack us more. So I ask you, Do you have any method that might prevent Iran from building a nuke and slipping it to a suicide bomber coming to a town near you while still playing by the rules? I have tried to figure a way and see no way other than to fight by the rules the enemy follows. Unless you are ready to let millions of Jews come here ( the entire nation of Israel ) and live ,or let all of them be wiped out by the millions… are ready to let the entire population fall under Iranian style Sharia Law until one of the Mullahs decides to send you a present.. are ready to go on defense and pull all American and Western people and assets totally out of the theater of action and close our nation down to outside contact you will you will find that we cannot now nor have we ever been able to make lasting peace except under force of arms.. and that force must be equal in the barbarity on our side as our enemy uses against us or we will lose. And if we lose your children will never know freedom.. are you ok with that. If you or anyone can give me any other solution that has even the slightest possibility of working so my son doesn’t have to know of war I would be the first to sigh up. In 1500 years it has cost millions of lives to find that this enemy has always shown one goal, Death for Martyrdom and as we saw with the Japanese Kamikazes the only thing that stopped them was ugly, brutal, total war and in this one once our enemies fail to wear a uniform he has given up his Geneva Convention rights and should not be given any quarter. This is the only way to make the next group that wants to not play by the rules see what that entails and we are seen as maybe a not nice nation, but a nation and a culture that still exists. I would rather break the rule and live than follow them and die. Just my opinion If next week a weapon is detonated in say Chicago and we lose 200,000 people would you be willing to not abide by the Geneva Convention? I choose to make that decision before it happens because afterwards it’s a moot point. And I have seen no indication that any actions, other than brute force, has ever held this enemy at bay and with my son on the line I would embrace any idea that would work. But for every suggestion I have heard I can see the outcome even worse.

I was asked of Iraq By Paul Mays 07/14/07 I was asked my opinion on going to war with Iraq. So I thought I would write my opinion here so the next one that asks can just check it out instead of me having to type way to much. I’m an old ex solder and I , along with almost everyone that took the field, hate war. The death of friends, the destruction of the land, the cost to our country all make me wish for world peace so our children can study science and history and live safe in a world of flowers and beauty. I from the months before troops hit the ground in Iraq thought we had to lay a heavy hand down to the Iraq’s government. But I always disagreed with putting troops on the ground as I think we should have just leveled the place a little bit at a time until they stopped firing at our aircraft , which they were doing every day, and opened the country to the U.N. to verify that no WMD’s were there or being built. I always have thought that we should have stated that we would start taking out every oil rig, every dock, every power plant, every TV station, every communication site and every military asset unless the agreed terms of the first gulf war was followed to the letter. I always thought that we would not have to worry about WMD’s if the whole country was living a stone age existence. It’s hard to build a reactor if you can’t produce the electricity to run your microwave. It’s hard to make anthrax spores if your trying to hunt dogs for food. That being said we are in country and we have produced a battle field where those that would try to come here and kill my family are coming to fight. This has allowed us to select the ground which is one of the first rules of war. The one that choices the battlefield controls the flow of the war. We have killed 1000’s of people that if not fought there at some point in the future would have to have been fought on a field of their choosing. And that field may have been Chicago, Detroit, New Orleans or any city U.S.A. . And if not for those in our own country that have done every thing in their power to undermine that effort we would already be bringing our troops home. Our enemies see the news and believe we are a weak and divided nation and that causes them to believe if they can just kill a few more, make a bigger noise that we will just fold up our tents. But if those same people Knew we would bring our entire nation into the battle they would have been the ones to fold up their tents. We are not now in a War in Iraq, we are in a battle in Iraq and in a World War that is for the very existence of our culture. While we go about life chatting on the computer and gazing at photos our enemies around the world is studying us to find a weak spot. They are trying to find a haven to mass, they are looking for any weapon that they can hit us with that can kill entire cities. They are moving populations into our countries to gain political power using our freedom’s and right’s against us. Iraq is a place where we can draw many of them and kill them, nothing more. We as a nation have yet to get pissed. Some of us are very pissed but for the most part we are not engaged as a people. We take a lot to piss off and our history shows that. We were long waiting before we were dragged into WW1 and it took a direct attack to get into WW2. The attack on Pearl Harbor was at a time when a couple of thousand dead was a large number. September 11th was a much smaller number because of population and would have had to kill 8 to 12 thousand to equal the numbers that forced us into WW2. In WW2 we got pissed and we put the entire nation on a war footing. We called the Japanese Nips, slants and every other thing we could think of. We locked them up in our country an we destroyed there cities with every thing we could come up with. This war will bring the same thing in the future. And I’m afraid it will take a strike on U.S. soil that will wipe an entire city from our maps before we Get It. I would have taken out every mosque, every hut and every vehicle in Iraq from the start. If we would have done so today we would not have the slow creep that we face. Someday I see us getting pissed and turning every Islamic country that allows training of our enemy into smoking holes. I support going into Iran, Syria and any other country that supports our enemy and stating clearly that for each attack on us or our allies will cause a wiping of an Islamic city from the earth, no quarter given for any people that give support to those that want to destroy our culture. If you want to stop these fanatics it must be stopped by their own people and until those people pay a price, for not stopping those of their faith from attacking us, they will never act. Many in our country have this view that war should be sterile and only that tank here or that gun emplacement there should be targeted. If we had done that in WW2 we would have lost and today we would have a different world. We targeted the people to make war so ugly that our enemies see the light. To those that think I’m cold and evil for speaking of targeting civilians, killing women and children and trying to wipe a whole nation out I only ask that you consider what you will do when we are defeated and all those nice freedoms and rights they have are taken away and your children are taken to train in some madrasa. Will you take responsibility for the deaths of Millions in your own country. This is what our enemy has sworn to do and while you think their just nice folks that want peace like you I tend to take them at their word and I take it personally when someone wants to kill my family and country.

“Let’s tell the Truth” By Paul Mays 07/11/07 You’ve heard it, we all have … Allah Ackbar! . Screamed from off camera men as road side explosive devices devastate a Hummer with the Honored solders inside, stated by Islamic speakers addressing crowds as they repeat it in unison. We see rolling across the bottom of the screens across the land the translation of “ God is Great “ . Well lets set the record straight on exactly what’s going on. Allah Ackbar is translated to “ Allah is the Greatest “ . In the western world we think that Allah is the same God of say the Catholic Church or Judaism. And we translate Allah to God. I submit that would be the same as translating some ancient Greek text as Speaking of Zeus as the same as speaking of Quetzalcoatl the Mayan’s left drawings and text of. They are not the same. The Allah spoke of is a God that tells you to strap on a few pounds of Centex and screws to your 10 year old son and tell him to walk into a group of folks that are buying food and yell Allah Ackbar as he is blown to pieces along with other folks that absolutely believe in the Allah they both praise. So I content the word Allah is not translatable. Just like other cultures that have no words for some things, there is no Western translation for Allah. The incorrect use of the terms interchangeably is one of the reasons we are in so much trouble. Most western cultures and especially the American culture protect religions and have this vision that there’s One true God and everybody’s on the same page. But let’s say I started a new religion and I worship my God “Fred Flintstone”… “Praise the Grand Pubba” It is from an old thin bible I read the prophecies of Saint Barney written by the great seer and Prophet of “Fred” - “Praise the Grand Pubba”… Prophet Ed Benedict in his DC version of the bible. He has commanded us to go forth and destroy the heretics of the time of metal. We must recreate the world as “Fred” - “Praise the Grand Pubba” showed us it should be. We will go forth and commit our very blood to destroy this infidel filled world of steel and glass. We shall remake the world in the image of the paradise of Bedrock. We will be given rule of the animal kingdom when we have martyred ourselves by the will of “Fred” - “Praise the Grand Pubba” and be given many wondrous beasts to serve us by vacuuming our carpets with their trunks, devour our waste under our turtle shell sinks and lift the stone to remake the world. The way we work in the West today we would totally protect this religion, as long as I have a enough people signing up for the Wednesday prayer meeting at the Sacred Temple of Bowling, from the unfair attacks from the west. Reality is we would consider me a kook or mentally defective and all those that follow me worthy of sticking in a loony bin. If A few hundred of us blew up some buildings and trains we would be hunted down and even those that didn’t make the bombs but just paid the dues at services on Wednesday. So here we are. Fighting with a portion of a religion that uses our love of freedom and the right to believe anyway you please against us, because we see them believing in the same God we do. Let’s be honest. Islam is a Cult of Death. It was started by a fine figure of a man that molested children and had many wives that were as young as 8 years old. He taught that women are no more than slaves and sexual toys. Toys that are owned and killed if anyone even sees them showing their faces to others than their owners. He taught that all that follow him should, by violence and subterfuge, make all that live follow him by force or kill them as infidels. Now I know you will hear those that speak of Islam as a religion of peace and it’s true that part of the Koran does speak of peace and doing good things. But it speaks of that peace only to those that follow the laws he put forth. It teaches that if you don’t think you should pray on hands and knees several times a day facing Mecca you deserve to die. If you draw or display a image of Allah’s great prophet Mohamed you should be killed on the spot. While the latest estimates say that 10% of the world Islamic population has sworn to directly attack us, over 60% of the World Islamic population has said they support to some extent the 10% that would die trying to kill you and your children we put in foot baths for the Islamic cabbies. Remember the goals of our enemies, An Islamic World. There are several ways they are addressing this goal. One is to directly attack us as in 9/11, Somalia and across the world. Another is to learn about of freedoms and making command and control decisions passed to the solders in the field across the world. Another is to breed as fast as possible to gain population control of regions and yet another is to infiltrate other cultures and use their freedom and lack of concern to grow to a size where they can affect the vote of the countries they infiltrate. All of these methods have been spoken of by our enemies in statements going back to 500 ad when Islam became. The only time in history that they have been held in check is when nations tried to wipe them from the face of the earth and there number fell to the point they had to retreat, only to come back after those nations thought the worst was over, packed up, went home and the Islamic populations grew. This is one of the reasons for many wives as those bear sons to send to martyrdom. History is replete with the exploits of which I write. There will come a time when we All become aware of this war being a war of civilizations and if we don’t act soon it may be too late to ever see a time again when these words I just wrote will not be the same as writing my own death warrant. And you find you must stoop to bended knee facing east or find your head on a post at the end of your driveway so your family and neighbors get the message.

Global Warming By Paul Mays 07/05/07 Let me start from the aspect that all existing data shows that we are indeed seeing an increase in the average global temperature. So I contend it’s a real event that May over time change the face of the globe. But I will not make this an emotional argument as many have. Lets speak science not religion. For those that want us to live in mud huts and let nature run wild have made it a B’leaf and damn the facts of the issue. First Fact is that we have no idea what climate is the Best, and for Who. While if you enjoy laying about the beach in Florida on an 85 deg day of perfect sun, seems like this climate is Perfect. If your living in Sub Sierra Africa an your children are dieing because no crops will grow and you can’t find more than a few ounces of water a day might think the environment is not all that great as it is. Maybe the weather of the world might change and we find that now we can grow vast corn fields in northern Canada that could produce double the food as today in the mid west. Maybe this would mean that we could produce enough food to solve world hunger and save millions. The point is that we have no clue on what is the Best environment. Second Fact is that as we produce more CO2, photo synthetic plants and bacteria grow faster and product more O2. This also locks atmospheric CO2 into biomass which may, I emphasize May, better solve the issue of dwindling fossil fuel supplies. The point is that we have no idea what the unintended consequences would be if we take action without fully understanding what can be wrought by such actions. This Religious view of the environment that some have taken tends to consider Humans as separate from nature, that we are some how not taken into account as an integral part of nature. Let’s take a look at reality on a couple of aspects. Alternate fuel vehicles sound good right? Let’s use ethanol we can grow it and it produces far less hydrocarbons when burned in your new ride. Its also requires we convert millions of acres of farm land into producing fuel. This causes use to reduce the amount of available land to produce food. So when the cost of your food doubles, triples and quadruples so you can drive a tiny ethanol burning car , don’t blame anyone but those that wish to save what they don’t understand. Let’s instead build Electric cars… Great! Absolutely no pollution right? Well not exactly. You see someone has to make the batteries which require all kinds of muck be produced as byproducts which must be disposed of during the process. Then to make them run for more than a couple of miles they must be made very light weight which means massive energy to be used to produce the plastics required to keep weight down. The production of which produces a half pound of nasty stuff for each pound of final product used in your new shiny plastic car. Then after a few years the batteries will need replacing. What would you suggest we do with Billions of pounds of deadly lithium and assorted toxic waste from the Millions of vehicles that need a battery change? I could go on about solar power , tidal power, geothermal and the like but I’ll just let your mind consider the Unintended Consequences of each. But have no doubt that when you attempt to solve a problem that you actually do not fully understand there will be many Unintended Consequences. So just consider that when one of the Preachers of this new Environmental Religion tell you that you need to buy a carbon offset, stop driving to the corner store, turn off the AC and sweat it out and hook a hose up to a cows rear end for the methane to heat your grass hut, take a hard look and the private jets they use to go shopping in Paris with and the millions of watts of power used to light the garden paths to there multi million dollar estates. When you see them take the buss to the next speech and downsize into a 1 bedroom bungalow then listen to what they preach. Until then go out and crank up the BBQ, Turn on the porch lights, go for a long drive in your SUV and enjoy your summer, because I bet the preachers are having a hoot.

A few words of Caution By Paul R. Mays 07/04/07 I wanted to write about the concept of a book on a friend says hes writing about “Failures of This Administration” . I have issues on even the writing of such a book and let me explain a bit. First I think the 1st amendment is critical to a free society but with that freedom come responsibility. Let’s first take a look back at WW2 as many people have never lived through a winning of war. Let’s say that after the attack on Pearl Harbor we had a bunch of writers write about the failures of that administration, and there were many. What might be the effect on what would happen in the future? First off the writings would be used by the Japanese to show how the Imperialist Americans have a corrupt government and was bent on ruling the world. Remember that only the Allies had freedom of the press. Our enemies would take the writings of well meaning Americans and use them to ramp up propaganda on how the people must stand and support the dictatorial form of government they have always had. So instead of our enemy feeling we are united as a nation we, are seen as a defeatable foe. This would have caused our enemy to fight just a bit longer and just a bit more fanatically . Each day longer means each day American boys die. Now if the writings of those that truly have issues on the way our government has been acting leads to our enemy fighting harder, hanging in 1 more day, workers making one more plane, should those that write this be held to account for the hundreds of American boys that die in the extra day, killed by that one more plane. War is never fought in a vacuum. When a nation faces an enemy bend on the destruction of that nation I feel that if you cannot write about solutions or giving alternate ways to win against a determined enemy then they should keep quite until our men and women are out of danger. If our newspapers and radio stations had been producing a running tally of the thousands of men that fell on the shore of Normandy on the first day might have we withdrawn? If instead of the newsreels showing the flag rising above Mount Sarabochi we saw stacks of body bags being loaded into Higgins boats for a slow trip to Arlington, would we not have had politicians voting on pulling funding to the troops instead of rallying behind them . And if pulled off that black sand beach may not of we had to later face those forces on the sands of California a few years later. Now I know we do not have a perfect government. We have corrupt politicians, Presidents that make mistakes and companies that take advantage of others but before you write of how bad we are you should consider entering the arena of ideas with workable solutions not just writing of failures. Today we are at war. The enemy has attacked us on our own soil. They have told us that their goal is to kill You and your children. To cause us to withdraw from the middle east and for them to set up a Islamic World. Let’s say we were to totally disengage from the entire middle east. What do you think would be the outcome? Do you not think that such a success would not embolden the Islamic Jihadist? In the future do you not think that those same people would use the resources to build bigger and better weapons? And as they have told us before, would they not seek a Islamic World? I suggest that those that scream and yell about how we should not of entered Iraq, should pull funding, side with those that ban freedom of the press, should take full blame when they find themselves living in a country where they have the right to speak of such things is taken away. What I see is a lot of people today that are upset about an election have such hate that they would risk there freedom and their lives for an uninformed political view. I hate War. I’m a old hippy that seeks peace and would love a happy world of sitting around the camp fire sing folk songs. It’s a great idea but for that to happen everybody else has to feel the same way. And, its sad to say, there are others that Believe that your way of life should be destroyed, that you should be forced to the bidding of dictators and fanatics. They wish to tell you what kind of work you will do, what you can and cannot read or write, where you can go and what religion you will follow. And they are willing to kill you, your family, your fiends and themselves to do it. If during WW2 the press was doing as it is today we would not have to worry about Terrorist today as there would be none, because the Gestapo would be going into the Muslim nations and killing every man, woman and child. The World Nazi Party would be wiping entire populations from the oil fields and using vacant deserts to bury the Billions of rotting bodies. Viet Nam should have been a lesson to us all but those that caused us to withdraw have never addressed the aftermath. All in all it is estimated that more than 1 million people were killed after we left. The killing fields of Cambodia has been written about but have you ever heard any of those in the press write about their responsibility in the mass deaths. In the mountains even today there are entire villages that are hunted, starved and killed because we left them behind and took flight. In Somalia we ran after loosing brave young men and a couple of blackhawks. Our enemy told us that the prime reason that 9/11 happened is that they Knew we would not take any actions because they Knew we would not support any action that caused us to leave blood on the ground. We are not a perfect nation but we are a caring and peaceful nation and only step up when others need our help. All those that write of how bad we are should think long and hard before writing words that in the long run kill our men and women of Honor as surly as a full metal jacket.

“I Want to Speak of Warriors” By Paul Mays I want to speak of warriors. A long time ago I stepped from a plane onto a strange new land along with several dozen others. As we stepped down the ramp we all had a fear that ripped at our guts and just as we tried to figure out where we were to go and what we were to do , along came a truck filled with body bags to fill the plane for its return flight. I saw in the eyes, of those that had been sitting with me and speaking of how now that this one or that one was now in country the enemy would just turn and run, a panic that caused them all to go dead quite. War is not pretty. War is not a great thing that young men strive for. War is ugly, dirty, smelly, and causes the soul to numb. But War is a price a nation, and the children of that nation, sometimes must pay. When others make efforts to destroy all that make life, liberty and freedom possible then a people must stand and loose the dogs of war. Today we are at war. Not the war of our forefathers but a war of a new nature. This war we find ourselves in is never the less a war that in many ,many ways is larger than any war we have every found ourselves in. If we take the words of our enemy at face value and we consider that 2 % of the Islamic world have sworn to kill my son, my family, you, your family and all that hold freedom as a fundamental right of men then we are looking at an enemy that is larger than Germany, Japan and Italy armies combined. Today we are in several battles. We have men and women fighting in the Iraq battle, Afghanistan battle and even within our own country. These are not Wars. We are not in an Iraq War we are only in a battle there. No different than in World War 2 when we were in battles in France, Italy, Belgium, ect. . But this is not a article of War but a article of Warriors . We today have men of Honor placing their lives on the line for the future of our nation and many other nations. These brave men and women walk boldly into the lion’s mouth while many of us stay behind and go about daily life as if nothing has changed. But make no mistake All has changed and we have just yet to realize it. These young people that step forward have been called stupid by some, have been told they are not capable of winning and told they are themselves terrorist, torturers, and criminals . They are not. They are men and women of Honor that have vowed to defend against the Islamic Jihadist that have sworn to destroy our very way of life. These young people leave their blood on the field of battle every day for you, your children and all you hold of value. The very Rights many use to speak of how bad our country is are being preserved by the Valor of these men and women of Honor. These are Warriors, These are the best of our nation and we have many that do not understand what they put on the line. Coming up is Memorial Day and while we Honor those who fell in wars gone by we should also stop and remember those that stand in the line of fire in the hope that our next generation will have the right to complain about the price of gas or to protest in the streets. These are Warriors , These Men and Women of Honor and from this old war dog I salute all those that today step from a ramp in a land far away and watch as those that fell return to a home land that has yet to fully understand what is at stake.

The History of The Vietnam War POW/MIA Flag In 1971, Mrs.Mary Hoff, an MIA wife and member of the National League of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia, recognized the need for a symbol of our POW/MIAs. Prompted by an article in the Jacksonville, Florida TIMES-UNION, Mrs. Hoff contacted Norman Rivkees, Vice-President of Annin & Company which had made a banner for the newest member of the United Nations, the People's Republic of China, as a part of their policy to provide flags to all UN member nations. Mrs. Hoff found Mr. Rivkees very sympathetic to the POW/MIA issue, and he, along with Annin's advertising agency, designed a flag to represent our missing men. Following League approval, the flags were manufactured for distribution. The flag is black, bearing in the center, in black and white, the emblem of the League. The emblem is a white disk bearing in black silhouette the bust of a man, watch tower with a guard holding a rifle, and a strand of barbed wire; above the disk are the white letters POW and MIA framing a white 5-pointed star; below the disk is a black and white wreath above the white motto YOU ARE NOT FORGOTTEN. Concerned groups and individuals have altered the original POW/MIA Flag many times; the colors have been switched from black with white - to red, white and blue, -to white with black; the POW/MIA has at times been revised to MIA/POW. Such changes, however, are insignificant. The importance lies in the continued visibility of the symbol, a constant reminder of the plight of America's POW/MIA'S. On March 9,1989, a POW/MIA Flag, which flew over the White House on the 1988 National POW/MIA Recognition Day, was installed in the United States Capitol Rotunda as a result of legislation passed overwhelmingly during the 100th session of Congress. The leadership of both Houses hosted the installation ceremony in a demonstration of bipartisan congressional support. This POW/MIA Flag, the only flag displayed in the United States Capitol Rotunda, stands as a powerful symbol of our national commitment to our POW/MIAs until the fullest possible accounting for Americans still missing in Southeast Asia has been achieved.

D-Day Order - June 6, 1944 by Dwight D. Eisenhower You will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world. Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well equipped, and battle-hardened. He will fight savagely. But this is the year 1944. Much has happened since the Nazi triumphs of 1940-41. The United Nations have inflicted upon the Germans great defeat in open battle man to man. Our air offensive has seriously reduced their strength in the air and their capacity to wage war on the ground. Our home fronts have given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions of war and placed at our disposal great reserves of trained fighting men. The tide has turned. The free men of the world are marching together to victory. I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty, and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full victory. Good luck, and let us all beseech the blessings of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.

THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS: by Abraham Lincoln, November 19, 1863 at the Gettysburg Battlefield Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.