Centerfield

Thanks, guys!

Unreservedly! We called, you answered. So many others have paid the price for us. For America. Honestly, this simple acknowledgement humbles me.

Right now, as I sit warm and safe, many of our soldiers sit in harm's way, believing that what they do makes America and the world safer, wanting to give to others what we have the unspeakable luxury of taking for granted: freedom, opportunity, stability, and the reasonable expectation of safety, security, and some measure of justice should things go astray. At least once in a while, we should all take just a moment to be awed that we have this. It is still far rarer on Earth than it should be, IMO.

Thanks to all! I pray that this and all future days finds each of you safe and well.

"They fought for us; for us they fell. And today we, with one accord forgetting blood and party, sect and creed, in deepest reverence do them honor. Nor, for their sakes, can we forget the desolated ones they left behind. Our tears or words of sympathy cannot bring back the comfort of those loving hands, the music of those voices stilled forever. Only the 'solemn pride' of having given more than all the rest, is theirs who lived to weep. But all the world, because of what they gave, is debtor to the blood that fills their veins.

"Sometimes words are helpless because the great idea disdains the bondage of language. Those whom we remember were not men of words but of deeds. A thousand battles on land and sea echo the glory of those deeds. Beneath the quiet sod, beneath the murmuring waves, their bodies sleep in peace, but in the destinies of men their souls go marching on. Because of them our lives and souls are free. Because of them our glorious nation lives.

"Our hero-dead are lying in a thousand burial places today. From Maine to Mexico they sleep; under the azure blue of Cuban skies; covered by the poppies of France; and 'neath the cold, pure snow of Siberia they rest, there to await that final call of reveille on resurrection morn.

"What gigantic struggles were put forth by our revolutionary fathers that the infant republic might be born! What supreme courage that heroic little band under the command of Washington displayed!

"Those pioneers of the new freedom were not actuated by any hope of riches or pecuniary rewards. They fought and laid down their lives for liberty and they achieved it. They demanded the right of self-determination and paid for that right with the blood of thousands of the finest men in the American colonies.

--- This is taken from a Memorial Day speech given by my great-grandfather, who served in WWI.

Wow Pat, really appreciate the link. Moving.

Thanks, Chris. I'm particularly proud of the bit about the evils of slavery. I was born in Louisiana, but my kinfolk were yankees, in fact or in spirit.

"But, from the hour when our government struck the shackles from the slave, from the hour in which the flag of the republic became the flag of humanity and the cause of the Union became the cause of liberty, from that hour victory shone in our arms. Our Revolutionary fathers wrested the thirteen colonies from the British and dedicated this nation to the sacred cause of liberty; the soldiers of the Union went forth to maintain and preserve that liberty."

I found this excerpt written back in July... was this fellow prescient about the French riots or what??

Because the U.S. does not have a generous safety net--because it is still a nation in which the risk of economic failure is significant--it tends to attract immigrants who have values conducive to upward economic mobility, including a willingness to conform to the customs and attitudes of their new country. And because the U.S. does not have employment laws that discourage new hiring or restrict labor mobility (geographical or occupational), immigrants can compete for jobs on terms of substantial equality with the existing population. Given the highly competitive character of the U.S. economy, in contrast to the economies of Europe, employers cannot afford to discriminate against able workers merely because they are foreign and perhaps do not yet have a good command of English. By the second generation, most immigrant families are fully assimilated, whatever their religious beliefs or ethnic origins. ...

Advocates of the European model point to the pockets of poverty in the United States, but may not realize that poverty cannot be abolished without recourse to measures that produce the social pathologies that we observe in Europe. Social mobility implies the opportunity to fail. If society protects jobs, the employment opportunities of ambitious newcomers are reduced and they may end up at the embittered margin of society. Thus, it is not poverty that breeds extremism; it is social policies intended in part to eradicate poverty that do so, by obstructing exit from minority subcultures. If Muslims in European societies do not feel a part of those societies because public policy does not enable them to compete for the jobs held by non-Muslims--if instead, excluded from identifying with the culture of the nation in which they reside they perforce identify with the worldwide Muslim culture--some of them are bound to adopt the extremist views that are common in that culture. The resulting danger to Europe and to the world is not offset by long vacations.

http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/archives/2005/07/islamist_violen.html

I thank our veterans for serving.

More potted meat product! Four of 'em on this thread in the last two days. Watch your threads, folks, and delete as called for.

Just a reminder: Not all who sacrificed life and limb wore a uniform. There were casaulties in the great wars on the home front and they are too often ignored. Everything from industrial accidents to what could be called total collapse from exhaustion because of the long hours many of these people put into the war effort - specifically in WW2.
So here's to my late grandfather William who died Christmas morning 1943 after pulling 2+ years of 18 hour days at his steel company in NY.
And to his wife Dottie, my grandmother, who peaacefully passed away last week at the age of 96 not 20 minutes after I paid her a visit and kissed her good night. They are back togeth at last.

Marcus, well said. There are many heroes and casualties of war, and not all are obvious or reflected in official statistics. I lost my own grandmother last year; my deepest condolences for your loss.

That's not what Veteran's Day is about, but it's certainly damn right that they too deserve our thanks and respect.