Holiday snaps. Messing around in boats on the Ammersee (Bayern, Germany)
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May 26, 2023
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Are you a sailor?
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Each year, our little town has a Norman Rockwell-esque Memorial Day parade with tractors...
fire trucks...,
girl scouts.....
old cars and the local school band...
There is always a princess or queen...
Boy Scouts are given flags and they pass them out to the vets watching the parade. I get one every year.
The parade ends at the local cemetery where there is a ceremony for the local fallen.
In 2018, the ceremony specifically honored my good friend, PFC Mike Mangiolardo. He was a '60 gunner for Company E, 1st Battalion, 6th Infantry Regiment, 198th Light Infantry Brigade. He was killed defending a bridge in Quang Tin Province on January 31, 1968. This pic was taken four days before he died.
Mike was a local boy and is buried in the cemetery. He never got to watch his kids and grandkids grow up, enjoy a beautiful day and a loving wife and generally experience life like I have now for over 50 years since I was discharged. There are so many other names, too.
Even though it was only a few days after my first wife died, I went to the 2018 parade and ceremony. I captured this image of a young boy, in a flag shirt, overlooking all the flags on the graves of local vets. He was no doubt there for all of the hoopla, but his whose rapt attention was caught by the vet at the podium who was telling Mike's story. The boy was beginning to learn that freedom isn't free. I find this image poignant. Maybe you will, too.
I don't wear vet paraphernalia, so people probably wonder why this old guy has tears streaming down his face. I take my grandkids and try to teach them that war isn't all about glory; and that every one of those flags represents someone's son, brother, husband, friend.
So, when you are having fun this weekend, please take a minute to remember what it is all about. Not the validity of the cause, but rather to honor the ultimate sacrifice by those who fought. I still don't understand what all that horror accomplished.
So many vets still have issues to this day. When we were getting to know each other, one of the first things the lady who is now my second wife asked me was whether I had PTSD, nightmares, etc. I guess I'm lucky that I don't - felt like I was doing the right thing at the time - so no regrets. I only hope our leaders don't expose the men and women of our armed forces to war for anything other than a direct and immediate threat to our country, as was the case in WWII, but I have sadly little faith that will be the case.
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Nice set and still looks like a great vacation.
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Well said. My father-in-law served on an aircraft carrier in the Pacific in WW2. There is even a famous video clip showing him running back into the tower during an attack. In any case, there would be no cause for war but that has not stopped individuals even to this day. I remember my bud who died 14 years ago and is buried not too far from where I live in National Cemetery.
Bob
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Not me. We were on a tourist boat.
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There are some fine drawings of Laon Cathedral in the book "French Cathedrals" by Elizabeth and Joseph Pennell.
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A few close to home pictures from me :
Lapwing chick :
A week later :
Small Cabbage White :
Fieldfare :
Dipper :
Song Thrush fledgling :
Snipe :
Snipe 2 :
Thanks for looking.
Regards,
Joe. -
Centennial Lake Reflection
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The above image is a poignant message of the human cost of war. The sad thing is the US has been at war for about 92% of its history.
www.globalresearch.ca/america-has-been-at-war-93-of-the-time-222-out-of-239-years-since-1776/5565946
Even in the short spans where we are not at war we have troops stationed in harms way often with the US supporting proxy wars through its intelligence organizations who operate under slightly different rules than the US military. The justification is alway to protect the best interest of the US - like to keep the oil flowing. But one has to wonder. I think it was comedian Dick Gregory that said, "if the old fools that start the wars had to fight in the wars, we would have no more wars." There is a pretty large grain of truth in that. On this day I am often reminded of the Iris DeMent song, "Wall in Washington."
www.youtube.com/watch?v=mL9rrCJkBJs
The sad part is most people my age recognize names on that wall. My best friend in high school who handed the ball off to me during numerous football games or I hit him with a pass on a low post in numerous basketball games in high school, has his name on that wall. It wasn't be his choice - his draft board was in a crunch for numbers and the day he graduated from college - they came and got him. Six months after he was shipped to Vietnam, the letters stopped and shortly I got a call from my mother with the "news." If world history is any guide - war is the way of the world. With population growing, the climatic changes reducing resources through floods and drought and the disappearance of land mass - migration will only get more pronounced not less...
But in the US we should be more concerned about how we take care of those we send to conflict to protect after they come home. I'm not sure we are doing that very well.
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Well said,
Bob
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Truman and Greg:
As a Vietnam era vet, your posts hit home in a big way. Even though I was fortunate enough to serve (USAF) but not be directly stationed overseas in any conflicts, I have numerous friends and relatives who lost their lives in that war, and your posts and comments brought back a lot of memories and emotions that have been stored away and dormant for a good while. That's a good thing, because it's a necessary reminder of the terrible toll these conflicts have wrought and the impact to individuals, families, and relatives.
Thank you for posting... a very timely and poignant reminder of the cost of freedom, and a good reminder of the emotional impact that a photograph can convey.
Jerry
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farmer
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In 1971, I was working at a three letter agency that had more mathematicians working than Quakers has oats. I was headed off back to graduate school in Sept and this was July and hence looking for a short term task. One morning at my desk when I arrived at work stood a young Army officer. He was drafted after he finished his PhD in algebraic number theory at Princeton and was stationed in Vietnam and he had a problem and idea. His name was Roman and we became lifelong friends. Seems he thought there was an algorithm the VC were using to change their communications call signs monthly. When they changed it took our traffic analyst almost two weeks to reestablish the networks so we lost track of them for half the month and that was when our troops were the most vulnerable to attack. If we could crack the algorithm - we would know the new call signs as soon as the VC did. He did have the collaborate resources in VN nor the computer horsepower to follow his instincts so his commanding officer sent him back to NSA for help.
After long hours of scouring over 5 years worth of data and countless hours of computer time we did find that they were using the an application of the Chinese Remainder Theorem for their call sign changes. It was simple for the VC to calculate the new call sign from the old with a key they had been given which only changed once a year. Since I was headed out the agency brought in one of its "hot shot" traffic analyst. We taught him the mathematics he knew and a CIA team was put in place in which he was embedded with to move about the country and do quality control on the algorithm and help recover the yearly key change. Roman headed back, I headed off to graduate school. Bill headed off the VN. We had cracked the code and Bill's team keep the US up to date on minor changes. By the time Saigon fell as the US declared pease and started to pull out, I had finished my PhD and was drawn back to the agency. It turns out that Bill and his team - like what happened in Afghanistan a few years ago - were stranded in enemy territory with no obvious way out. They moved from CIA safe house to CIA safe house until the made it to the shore of the South China to a predetermined location and a predetermined time and were exfiltrated by a squad of Navy Seals.
One one CIA officer lost his life during that exfiltration. But one is too many. There is an another wall in Washington that isn't as well known. It is the wall of stars, a.k.a. the Memorial Wall in CIA headquarters. Not all stars have names associated since to do so would compromise sources and methods and potentially put others a risk. When it is safe the stars are associated with names and deeds.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_Memorial_Wall
Bill made it back - a bit worse for the wear but safe and sound. He is still one of my best friends. Roman passed on last year. While we honor our fallen military on memorial day - we should honor them every day by doing better for these that returned disabled either mentally and physically doing our bidding. The fact that one vet is homeless is a testament we have not met our duty. We should also remember those that served in other capacities - some of which were more dangerous than combat.
