Memorial Day

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Thanks for resurrecting this, @EveningStar.

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The Week in Review: May 28, 2016

2 COMMENTS
15 HOURS AGO Mises Institute

We at the Mises Institute wish all a happy Memorial Weekend, hopefully free from the horrors of the TSA. Regrettably, as Jeff Deist notes, the holiday is often used by politicians as an opportunity to “materialize at parades, picnics, and churches to give speeches about ‘freedom,’” unaware of how their own actions are a greater threat to it than any foreign entity in the world. It is capitalism that brings us peace and improves our lives. It is government power and those who cheer it that can destroy our lives. That can never be forgotten. No matter how entertaining this election season may be.

 

Memorial Day weekend is a time to reflect on war, rather than celebrate it. As such, on Mises Weekends we revisit an anti-war talk from our friend Tom Woods. Tom discusses how the late Murray Rothbard convinced him that peace and liberty cannot be severed, that empire abroad leads to socialism at home, and that foreign policy should be front and center in a libertarian worldview. And as Jeff Deist notes, Memorial Day should be free of political grandstanding — especially by those who don't understand what liberty really means.

https://mises.org/blog/week-review-may-28-2016

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Overnight Open Thread (27 May 2016) —CDR M

 

 

Remembering the quintessential American Hero - and his son - On Memorial Day.

To Stewart, patriotism was a shared ideal. Even the wealthy and well-connected had the sacred duty to stand up and fight for their country.

 

So Stewart prepared for war. He logged more and more hours piloting his airplane. He hired a trainer to help him bulk up.

In March 1941 - nine months before Pearl Harbor - Stewart, who had just won an Oscar for "The Philadelphia Story," was sworn into the Army ... as a private.

After the Pearl Harbor attack, the Air Force wanted Stewart to sell war bonds, contending that he was too old (mid-30s) and too famous to risk flying combat missions.

But he pushed and wrangled and charmed until - finally - he was sent to England and put in command of a squadron of B-24 Liberator bombers.

Wish we had more folks like James Stewart and his adopted son Ronald McLean. This is a good sign though. Teen keeps American flag from hitting the ground. http://ace.mu.nu/archives/363735.php#363735

 

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When Wyler came back
Scott Johnson
May 29 2016

When I walked into Spaulding Auditorium to see The Best Years of Our Lives as an undergrad, I had never even heard of the film. When I walked out three hours later, I couldn’t believe I had never heard of it. It is a great film with a lot of truth and a big heart in it. Tonight TCM is carrying the film as part of its Memorial Day lineup. It’s a movie every American should see. If you haven’t seen it yet, you might want to try to catch it tonight.

 

Mark Harris tells the highly improbable story behind the making of the film in Five Came Back, his terrific account of the prominent directors who volunteered to use their filmmaking skills on behalf of the United States in the armed forces during the war. The Best Years of Our Lives provides a sort of postwar capstone to the story.

 

Telling the story of returning veterans was Samuel Goldwyn’s idea; he commissioned MacKinlay Kantor to write a screenplay. Instead Kantor turned in a treatment in blank verse.

 

(Snip)

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_TJuLRjQCM

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viHa7jzOUjM

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America's Honor
Scott Johnson
May 30 2016

In observance of Memorial Day 2007 the Wall Street Journal published a characteristically brilliant column by Peter Collier to mark the occasion. The column remains accessible online * here. I don’t think we’ll read or hear anything more thoughtful or appropriate to the occasion today. Here it is:

Once we knew who and what to honor on Memorial Day: those who had given all their tomorrows, as was said of the men who stormed the beaches of Normandy, for our todays. But in a world saturated with selfhood, where every death is by definition a death in vain, the notion of sacrifice today provokes puzzlement more often than admiration. We support the troops, of course, but we also believe that war, being hell, can easily touch them with an evil no cause for engagement can wash away. And in any case we are more comfortable supporting them as victims than as warriors.

Former football star Pat Tillman and Marine Cpl. Jason Dunham were killed on the same day: April 22, 2004. But as details of his death fitfully emerged from Afghanistan, Tillman has become a metaphor for the current conflict–a victim of fratricide, disillusionment, coverup and possibly conspiracy. By comparison, Dunham, who saved several of his comrades in Iraq by falling on an insurgent’s grenade, is the unknown soldier. The New York Times, which featured Abu Ghraib on its front page for 32 consecutive days, put the story of Dunham’s Medal of Honor on the third page of section B.

Not long ago I was asked to write the biographical sketches for a book featuring formal photographs of all our living Medal of Honor recipients. As I talked with them, I was, of course, chilled by the primal power of their stories. But I also felt pathos: They had become strangers–honored strangers, but strangers nonetheless–in our midst.

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(Snip)

 

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* Behind Paywall

 

Also see Thanks, Commie symps

R. Pollock, Daily Caller

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* Gurney. Tiny. Pig Pen. I Remember Them All
What if Jimmy from Georgia hadn’t been killed? And we’d all danced at his wedding instead?
Jack Estes
May 27, 2016

In 1968 I was 18 years old, broke, flunking out of school and my girlfriend was pregnant. Then I joined the Marine Corps and went to Vietnam.

When a rocket hit the mess hall, half full of young Marines, I was about 200 yards away. I saw it pass overhead, long and white, and heard the explosion. I had only been in country a few days and knew no one. Some of the boys were placed in body bags and trucked out, as I recall.

Now I’m old and beat up, moving toward another Memorial Day. I’m thinking about the Marines I did know and wondering what their lives would have been like if they had survived.

(Snip)

 

* Behind Paywall...Google Title.

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HONORING OUR FALLEN SOLDIERS

 

They went into harm's way to insure our freedoms -- let's celebrate those freedoms.

 

May 30, 2016 Mich

ael Cutler

During my 30-year career with the former INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service) I had the privilege of working with members of many other law enforcement agencies, both from within the United States and with those of foreign governments. One of those foreign police forces was the Israeli National Police.

 

There are times when a statement made by someone else creates a seminal moment; when an issue is brought into such focus that you can never forget it. Such a moment took place quite a few years ago when I joined an Israeli police general for a working lunch. He was sharing information with me about an Israeli fugitive who was wanted for committing serious crimes in Israel and had fled to the United States to avoid arrest. I would ultimately arrest the fugitive for his violations of our immigration laws and have him deported so that he could face justice in his native Israel.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/262976/honoring-our-fallen-soldiers-michael-cutler

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American Military Cemetery at Luxembourg. July 4th, 2010
Photo courtesy of Anna Puma

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May 30, 2016

A Memorial Day Reminder (and a Thank You)

By Steve McCann

The people of United States, a nation struggling to regain a sense of optimism and confidence, have, over many years, been told by a preponderance of the elites in American society that their country is one of an ignoble nature and history. That “American Exceptionalism” is a myth that has precipitated the plunder of the planet and the exploitation of mankind throughout the world.

 

This is a nation whose alleged sins have been portrayed as so egregious that the current president, whose primary campaign promise was to “fundamentally transform America,” feels duty bound to go around the world on bended knee apologizing for those perceived transgressions.

 

The United States has become a ship without a rudder aimlessly wandering about the turbulent seas, piloted by those who only interest is themselves, their ideology, and their thirst for power. Far too many Americans, by dint of a deliberately woeful education and never ceasing propaganda spewed by a majority of the Ruling Class, do not know that they have in their possession the key to a prosperous and equitable society: individual freedom and liberty concurrent with a significant constraint on the power of the central government.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/05/a_memorial_day_reminder_and_a_thank_you.html

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This is a bit late, I know, and a bit long, but well worth the listen if you have time. It's from a musical called "Songs For A New World", (described as a theatrical song cycle) and it represents the final thoughts/prayers of a dying soldier. Very powerful.

 

I played for this show 6 years ago (not this version; it was at our local university) luckily just AFTER Ev returned home safely from his 2nd deployment. Would've been tough otherwise. As it was, I dissolved in tears at each performance.

[Geee]

 

This is a bit late, I know, and a bit long, but well worth the listen if you have time. It's from a musical called "Songs For A New World", (described as a theatrical song cycle) and it represents the final thoughts/prayers of a dying soldier. Very powerful.

 

I played for this show 6 years ago (not this version; it was at our local university) luckily just AFTER Ev returned home safely from his 2nd deployment. Would've been tough otherwise. As it was, I dissolved in tears at each performance.

 

Yep - that pulls the tears right out of ya'