Holy Crap, it’s Halloween……

They're coming to take me away ho ho he he ha ha

Through their eyes........

The easiest way to explain this post is to reprint an email I received.

Hi Sarge Charlie,

My name is Jason Frizado and I'm in the middle of pre-production on a film about 3 Vietnam Veterans. Would very much appreciate you helping spread the word about our trailer to your followers. Please feel free to use my email in your posting.

Email: jfrizado1@yahoo.com

Trailer: http://youtu.be/NGbe1_L3YzM

Thank you for your help and your service.

-Jason

These guys are speaking for me, why them and not me has been a question on my mind for years now. 58,000 young men died there. Apparently these guys are making a trip to Vietnam, something I wish I was strong enough to do. Because of Vietnam, I am not able to make such a trip, since I am in an all out fight for my life as a result of my 4th Agent Orange related cancer. I will die from Agent Orange someday, no less wounded in Vietnam than those 58,000 young men, however, my name will not be on the wall.

Jason, I hope you make a great movie, I look forward to seeing it. I hope this post will be helpful in your promotion.

Charlie

Names are added when it has been determined that a service member has died directly from combat-related wounds. Cancer victims of Agent Orange, and post traumatic stress suicides do not fit the criteria for inclusion upon the Memorial. Some have calculated that it would take another two or more entire Walls to include all the names in those two categories alone.

A hero’s last stand……..

How much can one soldier give, this man, Sgt. 1st Class Kristoffer B. Domeij gave his all.  An Army Ranger who was part of the team that freed Iraq war prisoner Pvt. Jessica Lynch in 2003 has been killed in Afghanistan during his 14th combat tour, leaving behind a wife and two young children. 

Sgt. 1st Class Kristoffer B. Domeij, 29, died on October 22 in Afghanistan’s volatile Kandahar Province when his vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb.

another soldier earned his wings, god speed my friend

More old photos…….

OK folks, you have had time to recover from yesterday’s boring deluge of stuff I like to look at, so here you go, hold your nose and look at these…….

Yep, my mother and father circa 1942-43

This is my grandmother with cousin Judy circa 1941

Cousin Lynn, me, Harold, and cousin Judy sitting on the tractor.  This old John Deer tractor is the one I was driving when cousin Wayne lost a finger in a farming accident. 

Uncle Peggy had a good rig for unloading the hay and getting it into the barn loft. There was a pulley system with one inch rope running through them, one pulley off the roof line in the front of the barn, a track from the front of the loft to the back, another pulley at the roof line at the back of the barn, and a third pulley down at ground level directly under the rear roof pulley. He had a big scissors type set of four big hooks with the rope tied to the center of the scissors. The four blades would be opened up and lowered to the wagon load of hay, when the rope was pulled the scissors would close and you could pick up a whole wagon load of hay.  As I said, the rope was fed through the three pulleys and tied to the tractor at the back of the barn. When you drove the tractor away from the barn you would be moving the wagon load of hay to the loft and it would move down the track in the top of the loft till it was where you wanted to dump it, that was a lot easier than throwing the hay by pitchfork into the loft and some one else moving it by pitch fork to where you wanted it. When the hay was dumped you would back the tractor up to the barn and drop the hook for another wagon load.

Now bare in mind I am about 11, my brother is a year older, Lynn is about 10 and Wayne is about 8 years old.

We had put up several wagon loads of hay when tragedy struck, we had just pulled up a load of hay and Wayne was messing around with the rope while I was pulling the hay down the track with the tractor, his finger got caught in the bottom pulley with the rope and messed up his hand. He eventfully lost the center finger of his right hand.

I have felt bad about this for my whole life because I was driving the tractor and did not know he was caught in the pulley.

Me, Harold, Lynn and Judy, circa 1945

Harold and old Pete, Atlanta, 1946

Uncle Willard and his son Howard (buddy).  Sadly they both died of heart attacks at around 40 years old.  circa 1938.

I used this photo in a recent post, Shell we Gather at the River.  No one was able to pick me out in the photo, that is because I was not there.  The tall one is my brother, Randy is next (he married Judy) skip one and you have Lynn, the rest were neighbors.  I had Pneumonia during this time and was unable to go in the water.  I had been sick all summer, when I enter the 11th grade I weighed less than 100 pounds.  I was baptized in the following year.

 

I am the cute one :)

And knowing you are again bored to death I will finish up with another treatment for ADD…………

That’s it, the end……..

From out of the past…….

Hi Folks, as you all know, recently I attended my North Georgia  family reunion.  It was such a hoot (Family Reunion, a family tradition).  Well recently I reaped some more benefits from that adventure.  There was some old photographs also in attendance and I requested a scan copy and a few days ago my inbox was full……….

This is the oldest of the photos, this is my father and there is some discussion was this me or my brother Harold.  His daughter is sure it it Harold because her son looked like this as a baby.  Circa, 1936/1938.

This is Aunt Evie and her mother Maw.  Aunt Evie took my mother and sisters in when their mother died after childbirth.  She raised them as her own and Maw also lived with her for as long as I can remember.  This photo was Duluth Ga, Circa 1943-44.  My grandfather abandoned them after the death of his wife.  You can read about him at my post, Being a grandfather.

This is my mother’s sister.  She was married to a young man who was attending law school.  She worked to support them until he became a lawyer, at that time he divorced her, maybe that is where lawyer’s bad reputation started.  She was a school teacher and got a job with the Airforce and lived in London teaching AF children.  In the 1980’s she got cancer and returned home to Aunt Evie’s where she died a year or so later.

Yep, this is my second grade school picture taken in Duluth, Ga in 1943.  I look like the runt of the litter. Since my birthday is in December I started first grade at 5 years old and was younger that most of the class.

The arrow points to my big brother, we lived in East Point, a suburb of Atlanta in 1946.  My mother worked as a nurses aid during the war and we moved from job to job.

This is my 4th grade photo, I did wear glasses.

 

This my father and his mother shortly after he was drafted into the Navy, circa 1942/43

This is my mother and Old Pete, our dog, circa 1946

This is our farm house in the background, it had never been painted when my father bought it 1n 1949.  Shortly there after we put Asbestos Siding on the house which helped to insulate it for the cold winters.  My mother, brother and me, my nose must have itched.

My brother and me in 1949 with our new Poodle after Old Pete died.  It appears that I was somewhat of a smart ass, I have a nose sticker for the photo.

Nose sticker, AKA Maple tree seed.  Let’s face it, it was a simpler time and we knew how to amuse ourselves.  ADD was treated with a switch on the butt.

OK, OK, I know you are bored to death by now so I will finish this post with a photo L-R my cousin Lynn, me and my brother in the old swimming hole.  I am willing to bet there was no bathing suits involved in this experience…….circa 1947-48

We cannot wait, I will do it myself……

Here we go again, our President has said we cannot wait for Congress to act so with executive orders he plans to offer a home refinance program guaranteed by Fanny May and Freddie Mac, (US, the us tax payer).  Regardless of the amount the home owner is under water, (no appraisal required) the home owner will be able to refinance at lower interest rates.   Tell me something folks, did the housing bubble put us in our present economic situation?  I think so, anyone ready for the next bubble to burst?  We have a president that has done more to destroy our economy than anyone in history, his attitude is that, well if we do it again, maybe it will work.  He is an economics idiot. 

He also has no respect for our constitution.

Peter Morici

President Barack Obama's plan to allow homeowners owing more than their houses are worth to refinance will create a credit crisis down the road, says Peter Morici, a professor at the University of Maryland School of Business and former chief economist at the U.S. International Trade Commission.
The program seeks to prevent foreclosures by allowing homeowners still current on their federally guaranteed mortgages to refinance even if their home values have dropped below what they still owe.
"That is a prescription for more failed loans and another crisis in mortgage finance down the road or huge losses for U.S. taxpayers that can only be accommodated by even bigger deficits and printing money," Morici writes in a Real Clear Markets column.

Read more: Morici: Obama Mortgage Plan to Spark Credit Crisis

We Won One…..

Please reference my post of July 5, 2011:  CONGRESS SHALL MAKE NO LAW

Arleen Ocasio

Speaking of holy crap, suppose I told you that the Veterans National Cemetery in Houston, TX. Cemetery Director, Arleen Ocasio, has:

• Ordered an American Legion post to remove prayers from its burial rituals
• Told the National Memorial Ladies they may no longer include “God bless” in their condolence cards or use religious messages when talking with veterans’ families
• Shut down the cemetery chapel and turned it into a meeting room

American Legion member Willie Beck discusses the federal lawsuit against the Houston National Cemetery and the VA.

 

Houston National Cemetery settlement

"This agreement preserves VA policy that families' wishes are paramount when their loved ones - our nation's heroes - are laid to rest," Steve Muro, VA's undersecretary for memorial affairs, said in a statement. "This agreement respects the important principle that the family's wishes for religious observances at the committal services must be honored, which VA has fought to protect from day one." (B S)

Under the settlement, VA agrees "not to ban, regulate or otherwise interfere with prayers, recitations, or words of religious expression absent family objection" and to let veterans' families hold services with any religious or secular content they desire.

VA also agrees not to edit or control private religious speech by speakers at VA-sponsored ceremonies or events and pledges to return a Bible, cross and Star of David to the cemetery's chapel, which must remain open and not be used for storage or referred to as a "meeting facility."

UNFORTUNATELY

Protesters had called for the VA to fire Houston cemetery director Arleen Ocasio. The agreement does not address her status, however, and VA officials said her future is an internal matter.

Americans in Europe

The American Cemetery at Aisne-Marne, France, 2289 Americans are here…….

The American Cemetery at Ardennes, Belgium.  5329 Americans are here………

The American Cemetery at Brittany, France, 4410 Americans are here…….

-

American Cemetery Brookwood, England , 468 Americans are here…..

American Cemetery, Cambridge, England, 3812 Americans are here…..

American Cemetery Epinal, France, 5525 Americans are here…..

Flanders Field, Belgium, 368 Americans are here

 

American Cemetery, Florence, Italy, 4402 Americans are here

American Cemetery  Henri-Chapelle, Belgium, 7992 Americans are here

American Cemetery, Lorraine , France, 10,489 Americans are here

American Cemetery. Luxembourg, Luxembourg, 5076 Americans are here

American Cemetery, Meuse-Argonne, 14246 Americans are here

 

American Cemetery, The Netherlands, 8301 Americans are here

American Cemetery. Normandy, France, 9387 Americans are here

American Cemetery, Oise-Aisne, France, 6012 Americans are here

American Cemetery, Rhone, France, 861 Americans are here

American Cemetery, Sicily, Italy, 7861 Americans are here

American Cemetery, Somme, France, 1844 Americans are here

American Cemetery, St. Mihiel, France, 4153 Americans are here

American Cemetery, Suresnes, France, 1541 Americans are here

Can someone tell me how many French, Dutch, Italians, Belgians and Brits are buried on our soil, after defending us against our enemies?

I can tell you that there is 104,366 brave Americans who died defending Europeans from their enemies and were buried in American Cemeteries in Europe.   I am not sure why but when I am exposed to the arrogance and dislike demonstrated by Europeans, sometime I wonder just why the hell did we do what we did.  Then I remember, we are Americans.

My friend Mimi has a series of 100 reasons to blog for peace.

Maybe I have 104,366 reason to join her.