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Current Events

“Thank You for Your Service”

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Really? Do you truly mean those words, or are they something that makes you feel good about your lack of it? I have often wondered about that because it seems so common today like Good Morning or Good Afternoon. Here is an article that my favorite contributor Marine Greg Maresca, had published in the American Spectator. I think it is a fitting article for today as it’s Veterans Day, or for those who remember when it was Armistice Day. Enjoy, and if you are a Vet, think about Greg’s recommendation. I love it!

When I first stepped onto the college quad, I was just another young man, making his way, surveying the lay of the land. For me, however, there were a few personal firsts playing out in real time to which none of those aspiring collegians were privy.

For one, I was no longer getting a weekly haircut, nor was any razor getting acquainted with my face on a daily basis. I no longer used shower shoes, waited in line to eat out of a can, or pitched a tent to sleep in a bag. “The slide into civilian slime,” as Marine Corps GySgt. Cooley, a decorated Vietnam veteran, would lament, was well underway. Perhaps that is why Gunny assigned me to the Civilian Readjustment class — twice.

In one of my first collegiate classes, everyone took a turn at the professor’s lectern, and we were all instructed to introduce ourselves with a brief biography, explaining what brought us to university. As the class was dismissed, the professor asked to speak with me. In no uncertain terms he wanted me to know that, during the Vietnam years, protests on campus occurred, and veterans were not well received by some.

Growing up, I witnessed the domestic upheaval that was endured by these veterans, many of whom were the senior NCOs and field grade officers I served with. There was even a smattering of Korean War veterans among them. Sensing the opportunity to support and defend these men who mentored me, I did it without trepidation and with satisfaction.

This was before the days when the ubiquitous expression “Thank you for your service” became the new catchphrase echoing throughout our lexicon, especially around Veterans Day. For some, specifically those Korean and Vietnam veterans, the “thanks” and “welcome home” were much too long in coming. Whether or not these words bestowed upon them are sincere, the fact is that plenty never got a chance to hear such benign salutations.

Or is it just something we say, like “Happy Thanksgiving” and “Merry Christmas,” to fill an uncomfortable void that often comes across as disingenuous?

This seemingly quasi-support perhaps stems from the fact that most have never served, even though America had, until recently, been at war for nearly two decades. More than 2 million served in Iraq and Afghanistan following 9/11. That seems like a lot, but, categorically, they represent less than 1 percent of the U.S. population.

Americans’ experience of war today happens as they are surrounded by the comforts of home. That battle against evil and freedom-hating rogues is fought compliments of a computer video screen and mouse, where the terror, blood, and stench of death is nonexistent.

“Thank you for your service.”

Really?

If you truly mean what you say, how about making your gratitude count the next time you vote? For once, stop casting your ballot for Marxists who take their liberties for granted, while despising this country that I served, and you chose not to, a nation that seemingly does not exist today.

How about that — or are you offended?

Freedom’s steep and never-ending price tag is disproportionally paid, time and again, by veterans, and it always has been that way, even after 1973 when Congress put the draft to rest. If attempting to assuage your draft-deferment guilt with your yearly perfunctory “thank you for your service” makes you feel better — then have at it.

After all, it’s a free country, right?

There is one hero of the Iraq War, who had the humility and grace to respond in kind, who was nothing short of perfection. You won’t find this gentleman on Facebook or any other narcissistic social media outlet extolling his every move as some validation of purpose. He does not wear a hat, shirt, or jacket to distinguish who he is because his mere presence and the way he carries himself more than suffices.

While on patrol in Iraq, his face and hands were mutilated by an improvised explosive device. Maimed for life, he looked the person dead in the eye, saying, “The best way you can thank any of us for our service is to make America a nation worth dying for, again.”

Amen.

Greg Maresca is a longtime Sample News Group columnist and a Marine Corps veteran living in Flyover, Pennsylvania. 

Wow, was that powerful or what?That is a great response to those common words of “Thank you for your service” (because I didn’t). Thank you so much for this Greg!! And Semper Fi, Brother.
Current Events

“All Gave Some . . .

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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

 

Recent Posts

Is America Dying?

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This was sent to me from a fellow Marine brother with the author unknown, but whoever took the time to write this, he or she has created an absolute masterpiece of gospel truth. I urge you to read it slowly and absorb it all. Then read it again. Nations  of long ago took centuries to fail, not so in today’s electronic world. The script has been written, the play appears to be in its final act – the United States of America as we knew it is doomed. Thank you Al

Men, like nations, think they’re eternal.  What man in his 20s or 30s doesn’t believe, at least subconsciously, that he’ll live forever? In the springtime of youth, an endless summer beckons. As you pass 70, it’s harder to hide from reality…. as you lose friends and relatives.

Nations also have seasons: Imagine a Roman of the 2nd century contemplating an empire that stretched from Britain to the Near East, thinking: This will endure forever…. Forever was about 500 years, give or take…. not bad, but gone!!

France was pivotal in the 17th and 18th centuries; now the land of Charles Martel is on its way to becoming part of the Muslim ummah.

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the sun never set on the British empire; now Albion exists in perpetual twilight. Its 96-year-old sovereign is a fitting symbol for a nation in terminal decline.

In the 1980s, Japan seemed poised to buy the world. Business schools taught Japanese management techniques. Today, its birth rate is so low and its population aging so rapidly that an industry has sprung up to remove the remains of elderly Japanese who die alone.

I was born in 1945, almost at the midpoint of the 20th century – the American century. America’s prestige and influence were never greater. Thanks to the “Greatest Generation,” we won a World War fought throughout most of Europe, Asia, and the Pacific. We reduced Germany to rubble and put the rising sun to bed. It set the stage for almost half a century of unprecedented prosperity.

We stopped the spread of communism in Europe and Asia and fought international terrorism. We rebuilt our enemies and lavished foreign aid on much of the world.  We built skyscrapers and rockets to the moon. We conquered Polio and now COVID. We explored the mysteries of the Universe and the wonders of DNA – the blueprint of life.

But where is the glory that once was Rome? America has moved from a relatively free economy to socialism – which has worked so well NOWHERE in the world.

We’ve gone from a republican government guided by a constitution to a regime of revolving elites. We have less freedom with each passing year. Like a signpost to the coming reign of terror, the cancel culture is everywhere. We’ve traded the American Revolution for the Cultural Revolution.

The pathetic creature in the White House is an empty vessel filled by his handlers. At the G-7 Summit, ‘Dr. Jill’ had to lead him like a child. In 1961, when we were young and vigorous, our leader was too. Now a feeble nation is technically led by the oldest man to ever serve in the presidency.

We can’t defend our borders, our history (including monuments to past greatness) or our streets. Our cities have become anarchist playgrounds. We are a nation of dependents, mendicants, and misplaced charity.  Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegal aliens are put up in hotels.

The president of the United States can’t even quote the beginning of the Declaration of Independence (‘You know – The Thing’) correctly. Ivy League graduates routinely fail history tests that 5th graders could pass a generation ago. Crime rates soar and we blame the 2nd Amendment and slash police budgets.

Our culture is certifiably insane. Men who think they’re women. People who fight racism by seeking to convince members of one race that they’re inherently evil, and others that they are perpetual victims. A psychiatrist lecturing at Yale said she fantasizes about “Unloading a revolver into the head of any white person.” We slaughter the unborn in the name of freedom, while our birth rate dips lower year by year. Our national debt is so high that we can no longer even pretend that we will repay it one day. It’s a $30-trillion monument to our improvidence and refusal to confront reality. Our “entertainment” is sadistic, nihilistic, and as enduring as a candy bar wrapper thrown in the trash.  Our music is noise that spans the spectrum from annoying to repulsive.

Patriotism is called an insurrection, treason celebrated, and perversion sanctified. A man in blue gets less respect than a man in a dress. We’re asking soldiers to fight for a nation our leaders no longer believe in.

How meekly most of us submitted to Fauci-ism (the regime of face masks, lockdowns, and hand sanitizers) shows the impending death of the American spirit.

How do nations slip from greatness to obscurity?
* Fighting endless wars they can’t or won’t win
* Accumulating massive debt far beyond their ability to repay
* Refusing to guard their borders, allowing the nation to be inundated by an alien horde
* Surrendering control of their cities to mob rule
* Allowing indoctrination of the young
* Moving from a republican form of government to an oligarchy
* Losing national identity
* Indulging indolence
* Abandoning God, faith, and family – the bulwarks of any stable society.

In America, every one of these symptoms is pronounced, indicating an advanced stage of the disease.

Even if the cause seems hopeless, do we not have an obligation to those who sacrificed so much to give us what we had? I’m surrounded by ghosts urging me on: the Union soldiers who held Cemetery Ridge at Gettysburg, the battered bastards of Bastogne, those who served in the cold hell of Korea, the guys who went to the jungles of Southeast Asia and came home to be reviled or neglected.

This is the nation that took in my immigrant grandparents, whose uniform my father and most of my uncles wore in the Second World War. I don’t want to imagine a world without America, even though it becomes increasingly likely.

During Britain’s darkest hour, when its professional army was trapped at Dunkirk and a German invasion seemed imminent, Churchill reminded his countrymen, “Nations that go down fighting rise again, and those that surrender tamely are finished.”

The same might be said of causes. If we let America slip through our fingers, if we lose without a fight, what will posterity say of us?

While the prognosis is far from good. Only God knows if America’s day in the sun is over.

Author Unknown

Postscript: Read it and weep, forward or erase it! I read it three times and am now posting it to you, believing that we are at the moment in time to either stand up, or shut up! We now may soon be at the next stage in our country’s future. I believe it is closer than we think. God help us.

 

 

 

Recent Posts

Independence Day – Really?

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Another thought-provoking message from Greg. We have so much to think about this 4th of July, but in today’s society I fear that many folks will think of nothing but hamburgers, hot dogs, pop, beer, and a day off from work, that is for those who are working and not  taking government handouts. Meanwhile the “silent majority” sleeps.

 

Freedom’s landscape

By: G. Maresca

As America plans to celebrate the nation’s birth by taking inventory of the hotdogs, hamburgers, soda and beer, the most treasured and esteemed American stock lies forsaken along freedom’s continuum.

In his seminal work, “Crisis and Leviathan,” economic historian Robert Higgs argued how in the 20th century the federal government grew as a result of three crises: World War I, the Great Depression, and World War II. In the 21st century, you can add 9/11 and COVID-19 to the list. During those crises, the federal government went about raising taxes, instituted more spending programs, and added to their arsenal more regulatory power.

With the heady combination of 9/11 and COVID, the government continues to fester as America devolves into Gotham City. I was reminded of this during a recent trip to the airport. I was not flying, just dropping off, and still had to remove my shoes, empty my pockets, and go through a full body scan in order to escort my daughter to her departing gate.

What Benjamin Franklin, our first self-made American, said over two centuries ago certainly resonated: “Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

As we traversed the terminal there was a sketching of the top ten skyscrapers in the world. The U.S. has only one on the list at number six – the Freedom Tower in Lower Manhattan – that was supposed to fill the void left when the World Trade Center met its untimely fate on 9/11. A generation ago, America had all ten.

Besides the overwrought airport security courtesy of The Transportation Security Administration (TSA), I couldn’t help but wonder what other things have been compromised all in the name of security in a time of heightened emotions “where something must be done.”

Never underestimate governmental mission creep.

Enter the Patriot Act, Homeland Security, TSA and an emboldened National Security Agency and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Courts that illegally spies on more than three million Americans, and this is according to that leftist fortress, The New York Times. Not to be dismissed was America taking on the costly role of being the unwanted landlords of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Government’s resulting muscle has grown too penetrating and too concentrated. Many throughout the federal bureaucracy are overly determined to inject this power into all aspects of American life. Proposals for more legislation, regulations, and interventions is akin to treating a poisoned patient with more poison.

Solving problems caused by too much government with more government is no answer.

Evidence of this can be found in the latest Gallup poll where only 19% said they trusted the government “most of the time.” Juxtapose that to the same 1958 poll where nearly 75% said they trusted the government to do the right thing “most of the time.”

Government has devolved into a centralized religion telling houses of worship to close, while giving abortion clinics the green light to remain open during a pandemic. Government bureaucrats sell voting and vaccines as salvation while indoctrinating America’s children through public education.

The government has banned God in the classroom, the locker room, the public square, public buildings, and ignores His teachings when writing its laws. Observing constitutional limits that does not provide for a “right” to abort an unborn child is depicted as violating “women’s rights” when the left cannot or will not define what a “woman” is.

The country is on a suicidal path culturally and taking our freedom along for the ride. The Founding Father that would not be surprised: Franklin.

On September 17, 1787, as the delegates departed the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, Franklin was asked what kind of government the convention had created. Franklin famously replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.”

Franklin also remarked how “freedom of speech is a principal pillar of a free government; when this support is taken away, the constitution of a free society is dissolved, and tyranny is erected on its ruins.”

Freedoms ceded to government are rarely regained.

On the cusp of celebrating America’s independence, the nation is fighting a cold war with itself that has most Americans wishing for a sense of normalcy, but at what price?