BARBARA'S TCHATZKAHS

by Joseph A. Rehyansky I write as someone who regularly got shot at, rocketed, and mortared by people I didn’t even know who wanted to kill me. I mention this matter only to establish my bona fides to hold forth on such a weighty matter. My guess is that we have eleven too many “memorial days” of one sort or another, some of which you’ve never heard of and two of which are mercifully defunct, although I know from personal experience among the inhabitants of the holiday catacombs who dedicate way too much time to such things, that the officially defunct ones live on, at some debilitated level. April 6 Army Day: The date was chosen because on that date in 1917 the United States entered World War I. Last officially observed in 1949. Last Monday in May, our official Memorial Day: Its history is murky. Confederate veterans and the survivors of those who fell in battle seem to have come up with the idea first. They called it “Decoration Day.” Why? Recall the scene in G...

SOMETHING FOR US TO WATCH AND REFLECT ON THIS MEMORIAL DAY CLICK HERE (for my Uncle, of blessed memory - decorated WWII U.S. Navy Veteran, for my father-in-law, of blessed memory - WWII Canadian Army Veteran and my father, of blessed memory - WWII U.S. Army Veteran) Poem to the Soldier Author Unknown It is the Soldier, not the reporter who has given us freedom of press It is the Soldier, not the poet who has given us freedom of speech It is the Soldier, not the campus organizer who gives us freedom to demonstrate It is the Soldier who salutes the flag, who serves beneath the flag, and whose coffin is draped by the flag, who allows the protester to burn the flag. QUOTES TO PONDER: "Never in the face of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few." - Winston Churchill "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." - Thomas Jefferson "....If you leave here with the word DUTY implanted in your mind; if you leave here with the ...

If you have never been to Arlington National Cemetery... you've missed a profoundly moving experience. You can walk or take a tour through the graves and the history of America's true heroes. I've had the pleasure of being in Washington, D.C. enough times to have been there more than once. From the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, WWI & WWII, Korean War, Vietnam War -- right through to Section 60 -- the Iraq War. The aura of lives and dreams unlived because people chose to die for America is palpable. And when you go... take your tissues. You'll need them. By Dick Uliano America's most recent war dead lie in a quiet patch of ground at Arlington National Cemetery known as Section 60. In that parcel are 485 men and women who were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Most tourists keep to other paths at the cemetery, visiting the Tomb of the Unknowns or President John F. Kennedy's gravesite. However, especially on Memorial Day weekend, relatives and friends pay...