Today we reflect on those who serve.
Frequent visitors know how strongly we feel about Veterans Day. Our belief that sometimes the Day’s meaning gets lost in who has the biggest sale, or in the delight of being away from the rat race for those with the day off. It also becomes harder every year to construct a post worthy of those whom it honors. Following are a few snippets that caught my eye.
An Omaha Beach Veteran, Marion C. Gray.
Clik here to view.
Crystal Ettridge via US Dept. for Veteran’s Affairs Facebook
A West Point ring glints as this vet reaches for a name on the Wall.
Clik here to view.
Navy Seals Facebook
One of the few remaining Pearl Harbor Survivors.
Clik here to view.
US Navy Facebook
A page from the WWII Combat Diary of Petty Officer 3rd Class JJ McAndrews.
Clik here to view.
US Coast Guard
The Great Lakes Coast Guard is sharing excerpts from the diary on its website.
JUNE 11, 1944:
Boy, the beach is quite a mess. Small boats are all over, which had wrecked and then left high and dry. They still had dead soldiers and sailors in them. There were also dead soldiers lying on the beach.
Clik here to view.
Courtesy McAndrews Family via Great Lakes Coast Guard
OCT. 23, 1943:While we were playing, general quarters sounded.We ran like hell to our battle stations.
Some may have heard of the Doolittle Raiders; they volunteered for a secret mission, knowing only it was to be “very dangerous,” and it was. Below, the original 80 Raiders in 1942.
Clik here to view.
Doolittle Tokyo Raiders Facebook
Four men from that group are still alive. Below, three of them at the National Museum of the Air Force this weekend. For decades they have gotten together every year to toast those from their unit no longer alive.
Clik here to view.
National Museum of the Air Force
This was the last time they will gather to salute their fallen comrades, the four remaining Airmen decided this would be their final such gathering. They raised a Final Toast with the special goblets gently cared for over the years, drinking from a special bottle of 1896 Hennessey cognac, that is the year Lt. Gen. James “Jimmy” Doolittle was born.
Clik here to view.
Doolittle Raiders
The fourth Raider, Lt. Col. Robert L. Hite, was too ill to attend; his toast and salute were shared long distance.
Clik here to view.
R. Wallace Hite via Doolittle Tokyo Raiders Facebook
Lt. Col. Hite is also the only surviving Raider POW. From remarks made at the ceremony:
“That even in our darkest days there are some among us who have the courage to step forward and say, ‘Send me.’
We owe them our eternal respect and gratitude.
You can read more about the Raiders and the final toast at the Museum’s website, the group’s website, or Facebook page.
The constant through every decade, every deployment, every battle: they seem so very young.
Clik here to view.
Tuskegee Airmen Facebook
They still do.
Clik here to view.
US Military Facebook
They still are.
Clik here to view.
US Marine Corps Facebook
From Laurence Binyon’s “For the Fallen“:
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.