I received this from my friend and Marine brother who writes a fantastic blog called by the above title. Read his latest. As always Andy nails it straight on the head, and feel free to leave him a comment. You may have to copy and paste it into your browser.
https://acoloneloftruth.blogspot.com/2024/08/flynn-flammed.html
May the Lord bless patriots like Flynn, and I pray every day that there are millions out there like him (and us)!
But some gave all. And that is what this weekend is all about. So when you gather around the table for some traditional hotdogs and burgers this weekend, remember to hold hands and give a moment of silence to all those service men and women who are resting in ANC and in all those other hundreds of other cemeteries spread around the world
Jazz Finally at Rest By: Greg Maresca
On January 24, 2022, less than a month after Robert “Jazz” Jasinski, celebrated his 60th birthday, his six-decade run on this third post from the sun came to an abrupt and unexpected close. It would not be until May 23, 2023, that his cremains would be finally interred to their ultimate resting place in Arlington National Cemetery.
As the nation prepares to observe Memorial Day, it was certainly a tailored time to have his last and long overdue request realized. The elapsed time of 16-months – two hockey seasons – would have stirred a hearty laugh tinged with a little disgust from my old friend. Jazz was all too familiar with the enduring federal bureaucracy having spent most of his life toiling on the front lines for Uncle Sam – first as a U.S. Marine and then with the Transportation Security Administration.
The extended and unnecessary ripple effects of COVID-19 still resonate throughout America’s capital city and wokefully ground zero is Arlington National Cemetery. In no way does COVID still make such a prolonged wait for burial justified. It is nothing short of a national disgrace.
We have no issue with packaging multi billions in military aid to Ukraine and thought nothing of bequeathing nearly just as much military hardware to the Taliban in our flight out of Afghanistan – another national disgrace.
Millions pour over our southern border illegally, while we drown in government debt living in a cultural zeitgeist where plenty of folks think nothing of using a $1000 iPhone 14 Pro to check their food stamp balance.
The nation’s capital was like a second home to the Delaware County, Pennsylvania native having done a tour of duty at Marine Corps Headquarters. A favorite D.C. haunt of his was Arlington. Yet, it took 16-months to finally inter Jazz’s ashes among some of the men he served with and those he helped bury while serving with the Corps’ Casualty Notification Unit decades ago.
If Jazz had survived and knew that any veteran had such a long waiting period, he would have been heard. Given the circumstances, he never would have placed himself in a situation to jump the line, either.
Still, with this Memorial Day weekend upon America, we can’t bury some of our veterans in a timely fashion at the nation’s most hallowed and historic burial grounds affording closure for so many families.
There still exists a third of America who takes seriously the nation’s oldest president whose administration is devoid of many things, most of all – wisdom. According to Biden’s recent commencement address at nearby Howard University, America’s greatest threats are not foreign, but domestic. Is it any wonder why on this Memorial Day weekend, the nation is circling the drain of the abyss?
A call to Arlington’s general service number yielded nothing but excuses, namely COVID overkill. What was emphasized was how Arlington conducts approximately 6,400 burials a year averaging 30 per day. Their backlog consists of 4,500 extending the wait to 16 months – now in its third year.
Unanswered in another column from a year ago was when Biden abandoned Afghanistan in record time, why couldn’t he sign another one of his numerous presidential executive orders to expedite laying to rest heroic American veterans in a timely fashion?
Pulling punches is not in the Jasinski DNA as Jazz’s older brother Stan was generous providing solutions saying, “They (Arlington) need to think out of the box by holding larger ceremonies for groups at a time, use special ceremonial units or ROTC for extra manpower to reduce the wait. They have got to stop this ‘is what we have always done mentality.’”
Arlington guards the remains of more than 330,000 immortal souls buried under plain, white granite stones all in formation where every day is Memorial Day, and where waiting lists should be entrusted to the dustbin of history.
Arlington is the priciest of American real estate and is the unabridged narrative of the nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. And my old friend, whose ashes now finally rest here, would stress in no uncertain terms that we need to keep it that way.
Rest easy, Jazz, you are finally home.
Yes, may God please bless Jazz, and all the others who have served this once famous country. Amen
Postscript: I just received some very bad news from a Marine Brother, Sam Garland. Our best friend and brother Marine hero, LtCol Vic Taylor, USMC (Ret) from Steamboat Springs, CO has passed away. We know none of the details at this time. When I get more information, I will pass it along on here. 
An older picture (1959) of Vic as a LCpl
Originally posted 2023-05-28 10:52:31.
Yes, how well I remember the first salute I received at around 1530 on 7 August 1967 at MB, 8th&I, Washington, D.C. when I was commissioned. Here it is:
Then GySgt Lee M. Bradley, my hero, mentor, and godfather giving the newly commissioned brown bar his first salute and collecting the infamous silver dollar, which now retired SgtMaj Lee M. Bradley says he still has.
One Final Salute By: G. Maresca
For my first 17 years, a hat was, well, a hat. It wasn’t until I stepped off the bus in the wee hours of a humid June morning and landed on those celebrated yellow footprints of Parris Island that I quickly learned what I once called a hat was now a cover.
After my tour in the Corps, which included two deployments that literally took me around the globe, the only piece of uniform that fit me upon my departure were my covers. Thanks to adding two inches in height and 45-pounds in girth, my dress uniforms were always a major point of contention, especially during inspections. Fortunately, the camouflage utility uniform had a good amount of give, which was our uniform of the day – the one benefit of not being a pogue.
Once I returned to civilian life, my remaining covers were tucked away in my sea bag that in subsequent moves always found a home anchored in the basement. It wasn’t until my daughter requested me to render her first salute upon her commissioning in the U.S. Army that the cover would find itself, however briefly, returning to active duty.
Having been prior enlisted, I was unfamiliar with the protocols of the commissioning of a second lieutenant. Not only would she be commissioning but was named a George C. Marshall graduate having earned the U.S. Army’s top cadet award based upon scholarship, leadership, and physical fitness.
My poplin camouflaged cover was practically inspection ready considering it spent nearly four decades packed away awaiting its eventual parole to a hunting or fishing expedition that never materialized. My name was still visibly stamped on the inside and all that was left was a brief meeting with a touch of starch and an iron.
The only issue that still needed to be addressed was my hair. The mane is still in full force and pretty much the same color as when I first donned that cover. The mop, or what Uncle Vinny once sardonically called “good guinea hair,” was on tap to get a regulation high and tight shortly before the commissioning allowing enough growth to still pass muster with USMC regulation and acceptable to our family’s commanding officer, the butter bar’s mother.
The last time, I rendered a salute wearing that cover, I was still on active duty. I have no recall who was the heir of that salute, but to think the next one bestowed would be my own daughter decades later at her commissioning was surreal. The entirety of the formal proceedings were certainly a significant moment in time for an aging Jarhead.
Before accepting her request, I wanted to make sure that she didn’t want one of her ROTC cadre to do the honors as she has spoken with high regard for the senior noncommissioned officers that worked diligently with her during her undergraduate years and in particular MSgt. Cardray Moulden.
Our family’s military history is significant, having had two uncles who served in World War II one in the Army, the other in the Navy, and my, Dad, a Marine, served in the Korean War – all were enlisted. On her maternal side, one served on Iwo Jima, while the rest were Army veterans fighting the Nazi’s in Europe during World War II when military service was not necessarily a choice. The common denominator that ran through them was a patriotic sense of time-honored duty to serve one’s nation.
This seems to be missing among today’s youth as last year the Army reached only 75% of its recruiting goal, while the other branches barely met theirs. 2023 is no different. At a Congressional hearing, Pentagon brass testified things have not been this bad since the draft ended in 1973 and that the all-volunteer force may no longer be feasible.
Maria Maresca’s initial salute had two sets of firsts. Not only would she be the first woman in the family on either side to serve, but also the first to forgo the chevrons and pin on the gold bars of a second lieutenant.
Across our fruited plain, May is commissioning season. The formalities at Shippensburg University, not far from the hallowed grounds of Gettysburg or the Army’s longtime War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania is by no means a destination for any of these young officers. Rather it is the first stop in a journey that will sculpt, fashion, and solidify the rest of their lives as they serve a cause much greater than themselves.
The hope inspired by both Major General Andy Munera, the Commanding General U.S. Army Cadet Command out of Fort Knox. Kentucky, and the university’s ROTC’s Battalion Commander Lt. Col. Nicole Jepsen stirred a current that could not help but energize the auditorium of the Luhrs Performing Arts Center.
These newly commissioned officers’ commitment to serve stands out in a nation where only 9% of those eligible to serve do. They carry with them the hope of a nation that my last commander-in-chief Ronald Reagan once called “a shining city on a hill.”
This will be my last post for a while as my bride and I are taking our new RV (new to us) on its second shake down cruise to another FL State Park, that will make two down and 45 to go. I think it is fitting to post Greg’s story of his daughter receiving her first salute from her Dad. Great story. Congratulations Greg to you and to the new Brown Bar! I wish her well.
Originally posted 2023-05-21 12:17:26.
Don’t know if anyone has seen this, I think I saw it a while ago, but don’t think I posted it. Anyway if I did, sorry about that, here it is again.
Additionally, I believe enough time has gone by for me to post the results of my poll on changing the clocks. I will say I am disappointed in you guys. Eighty-six hits on the post and only twelve comments. Clearly, that sucks! Why do I waste my valuable time even posting if you are simply going to read it and not even click if you like it or not and then less than 14% of you take the time tell me keep it or ditch it. Sad! to say the least. Why do you even come and read the posts? Anyway twelve comments and eleven said keep standard time. One felt the need to tell us that since he retired he doesn’t care what time it is. Hmm, I felt that way when I first retired, but wait till he gets to my age, and finds that the body and the mind doesn’t like changes and trying to adjust to something as evident as daylight is a little tougher. So, if everyone says stop it and keep standard time, why are we still doing it? Send your congressman an email and tell him to stop it. I did, have you?
Anyway folks, meet the new Army, and bear in mind the Corps is not far behind them. Me thinks our CMC is having mental problems. I’ll post something about that late when I have time, but then some of you will read it and pass on.
Originally posted 2023-03-14 16:52:07.
It happened sixty-five years ago, but for me it was just yesterday. From the book.
~ 2 ~ “From the Halls of Montezuma”
Woody and I eagerly walked into the recruiter’s office in downtown Baltimore the next morning. A Marine sitting at a desk reading a newspaper asked, “What do you kids want?” We told him we wanted to be Marines. He asked why we weren’t in school. We proudly proclaimed, “We quit!” He told us to go finish school then come back to see him after graduation. I’m convinced he was using reverse psychology on us. We literally had to talk him into letting us join.
He told us he might be able to get us in, but it would have to be for four years since we were high school dropouts. So? Anything was better than spending another year in school.
I’m not sure why or when I decided I wanted to be a United States Marine. There were probably several reasons for this choice. One may well have been that I was exposed to the Marines at an early age. My brother-in-law, John, was a career Marine. I spent a few weeks with him and my sister during the summers in the mid-fifties and I particularly remember visiting Quantico, Virginia, when John was a sergeant. His military occupational specialty (MOS) was explosive ordnance disposal (EOD); these are the guys called today when there’s a bomb threat.
While there, I went to work with him on occasion and I’m quite sure these experiences influenced me wanting to be a Marine.
I saw the movie Battle Cry at an early age, but had not yet read the book; heck, at this point in my life I had not read any book. I did read it years later, as it would serve me well due to a strange set of circumstances.
I am sure the uniform also had some influence. I mean, let’s face it, does anybody have a uniform as sharp as Marine dress blues?
To be truthful, the Marine Corps’s reputation for making men out of boys was something I badly needed at the time. At this point in my immature life, I needed the Corps more than it needed me.
Whatever the attraction, I was convinced very early in life that I was going to be a Marine.
On March 6, 1958, after completing all the paperwork and physicals at Fort Holabird, Maryland, I said goodbye to Mom and Dad. Woody and I then boarded a train at the Baltimore station, along with several others, bound for Parris Island, South Carolina, where the Marine Corps’s East Coast recruit training facility was located. The recruiter entrusted to me a large, sealed manila envelope. I was to deliver it to someone in command when we arrived at our destination. He informed the group that I was in charge—my first responsibility as a future Marine.
The train ride remains a vague memory to me except that we were assigned to a specific car where we were told to remain for the entire trip. I recall that some of the boys brought along a considerable amount of beer smuggled in their baggage, which they shared with some others. I was too nervous to drink. I remember one of the boys boasting as to how he was going to breeze through this training—he wasn’t going to take any guff from the drill sergeants.
With each stop along the way, our car became more crowded with more boys on their way to this infamous place with an exotic-sounding name—Parris Island.
Most of us were asleep when the conductor shouted out that this was our stop—Yemassee, South Carolina. I stepped off the train into total darkness with a cigarette in my mouth. Suddenly it flew off somewhere into space with what I thought were a few of my teeth. This cantankerous fellow, wearing a hat I’d last seen on a bear with a shovel in his paw on U.S. Forest Service posters, was screaming for us to do something. I had no idea then how symbolic that hat was nor that I myself would someday wear it.
Everyone was running in circles, bumping into each other, falling down. The greeting Marine was screaming, “Move! Move! Move!” which we were certainly doing but had no idea where to. I heard someone crying out for his mother. Another boy was screaming for help—surprisingly, he was the one who bragged about not taking any guff from the drill sergeants.
Absolute chaos ensued. Finally, he pointed to a building. We all ran towards it, jamming the doorway, attempting to get through it and out of the way of this insane person’s wrath.
Inside the building were steel beds stacked two high with a bare mattress lying on them and bright lights in the ceiling with shades hanging over them. The Marine thundered, “Get in a rack!” What the hell is a rack? we wondered. I didn’t recognize anything that might be a rack, so sheer chaos continued as we all tried to figure out what exactly this fellow was directing us to get into.
Finally, some jumped into one of the steel beds whereupon we all followed suit; some beds even had two boys squeezed together. The Marine yelled, “Freeze!” Immediately the room fell into total silence except for the springs of the steel beds squeaking slightly as we all lay very still. He turned out the lights, and slowly paced up and down the center of the room while telling us we were turds, slimy civilian shit. We were in for one hell of a time when morning came, he warned, so we had better get some sleep since it would be the last time sleep would come for the next four months.
Welcome to boot camp!
As I lay there, I could hear the muffled sounds of boys sobbing, probably wondering like the rest of us, What the hell have I gotten myself into?
I don’t know how long I slept or if I even slept at all, but suddenly the lights came on and a loud banging sound awoke everyone as the same Marine was screaming at us to stand in front of our racks. The large metal trash can he’d thrown was still rolling around the floor as we scrambled from our supremely uncomfortable beds—now to be known as “racks.” We were then herded outside onto a greyhound-type bus. I had no idea of the time except it was pitch black and cold.
As I was boarding the bus, I remembered the manila envelope still lying on my rack. My first responsibility as a Marine and I’d blown it. I really did not want to approach this crazed Marine, but I had to retrieve that envelope. I reluctantly began, “Mr., I need to go back into the building to—” I never finished the sentence. He was screaming and spitting saliva in my face. I had no idea what he was saying, but I sure wasn’t going to ask him to repeat it. He shoved me towards the building. I ran in, grabbed the envelope, and bolted back outside.
By the time I returned to the bus, I was the last one to board there by forcing me to sit next to the ill-tempered, Smokey Bear-hatted Marine. I developed goose bumps as I took my seat, so close to this fearsome devil that I was expecting him to chew my head off just for kicks.
I distinctly remember the bus passing through a gate and seeing the Marine sentry smiling as we drove past. Other than swamps on both sides of the road, I could see nothing out the window, nothing that gave a hint of civilization.
We finally came to some buildings whereupon we were herded off the bus into a classroom filled with school chairs, the types that have a small desk attached to them. There were other Marines waiting there for us.
After much shouting for us to find a seat and sit our slimy civilian asses in it, we were required to fill out a postcard addressed to our parents. We were told to write to them that we arrived safe and would write again later. Then they hurried us into another part of the building where we went through a line holding a metal tray out in front of us while someone piled food onto it. We ate in total silence. When we finished—mind you, this was not as leisurely a breakfast as we were accustomed to at home—we were herded back into the classroom. The sun was just rising on our first morning as recruits—literally as well as symbolically.
Oh what a day it was!
Originally posted 2023-03-06 12:27:28.
