Troopathon 2009: Because They Serve

Her thumbs danced over the tiny keyboard of her cell phone, glumly texting a friend.  I reached over and, uncharacteristically, snapped it shut.  Gently, but firm.

“Not today, hon.”

With a loud sigh of disgust she slammed the phone back into her purse and sat there in the fold-out chair and sulked. My wife’s look to me of indignant expectation (You going to put up with that?) was met by my practiced calm of everything-will-be-fine (She’s a teenager, that’s what they do). 

Hoping against hope that my doubting Thomas wife was wrong and that I was right, I settled in to listen to the Memorial Day program at the Los Angeles National Cemetery.  It was May 30, 2009, and as we sat there on the lawn that cloudy morning, our little family was a whirl of dysfunction.  It had been building for some time; petty problems had ruined our peace, and small arguments and squabbling set my wife and my 16-yr-old daughter at mutual odds.  I sat there amidst the several thousand gathered feeling alone, distant, isolated.  And completely alienated from my family.  How could three so close seem suddenly so distant?  (more…)

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Tags: Jon Voight, Memorial Day, Robert Davi, Troopathon
Posted Jun 25th 2009 at 11:33 am in Military | 16886210 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/ggraham/2009/06/25/thursday-9/Troopathon+2009%3A+Because+They+Serve2009-06-25+18%3A33%3A12Gary+Graham

An Alternative to War

Disclaimer: What you are about to read is fiction. It is a story about peace. Peace at any cost.

THE WORLD TODAY: A News Summary

May 2009

BONN (EU News) – The current CSPEU administration has decided to increase productivity by lowering the age that children are required to enter the workforce from nine to eight years of age. The EU Vice Minister for the Interior states the lowering of the work age is due to an increased shortage of youthful workers. “It’s a reflection of the ongoing fighting between our peaceful union and the obstinate Russians.”

Citizens and subjects in the 18-25 age bracket have seldom been seen in recent years. The Vice Minister commented on this by stating, “This temporary downturn in our youthful population is insignificant compared to the tremendous loss of life on the Russian side. Though our rockets delivering Vemork V weapons obliterated St. Petersburg and most of Moscow years ago, the Russians, though scattered and ill equipped, still choose to resist to this very day. It staggers the mind why they wish to continue their own misery. ” (more…)

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Tags: "China", air force, allies, America, armed forces
Posted May 28th 2009 at 4:33 pm in Politics | 1436262 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/smann/2009/05/28/an-alternative-to-war/An+Alternative+to+War2009-05-28+23%3A33%3A41Schizoid+Mann

NBC: National Broadcasters Against Conservatives

Robert Avrech’s lovely paean to the patriotism of Old Hollywood reminds me, by way of contrast, of a blink-and-you-missed-it scandal from seventeen months ago. Even in a cultural arena rife with liberal outrages against military families, it marked a new low. And although it was but one small battle in the culture war, it is worth recalling in the wake of Memorial Day as a reminder of just how far our popular media has fallen from the sterling ideals of our forefathers.

What does NBC stand for again? National Broadcasters against Conservatives? No Blessings for the Corps? On December 7, 2007, as the country solemnly remembered Pearl Harbor and the timeless sacrifices of soldiers long dead, one of our major television networks decided that running ads praising today’s modern armed forces constituted a bridge too far. The two thirty-second spots had been produced by Freedom’s Watch, a now-defunct conservative action group which aspired to be the MoveOn.org of the right, using “grassroots lobbying, education and information campaigns, and issue advocacy” to fight the good fight against the legion of hippy-dippy protesters, nihilists, and ideological bullies that perpetually rage (and increasingly reign) throughout blue-state America. (more…)

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Tags: "It's Morning Again in America" (commercials), 30 Rockefeller Plaza, A Room with a View (1985), A.N.S.W.E.R., bob hope
Posted May 27th 2009 at 6:51 am in Media Criticism, Military | 1434103 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/lgrin/2009/05/27/must-see-tv/NBC%3A+National+Broadcasters+Against+Conservatives2009-05-27+13%3A51%3A50Leo+Grin

Memorial Day: A Rejection of Peacenik Foolishness

Memorial Day puts the lie to the nonsense that violence never solves anything.

Those rows of white tombstones decorated with little flags are the reason Americans don’t walk downtown, past the ruins where the synagogue once stood, to grab a schnitzel und ein bier from that little imbiss next to der bahnhof.  They are why there isn’t a smoking pit in the heart of Los Angeles where the Library Tower used to be.

Violence never solves anything, war is not the answer, arms are for hugging….  It’s hard to believe that there are adults out there that actually buy into such foolishness.

Memorial Day is about men and women who didn’t orient their lives to the dictates of poorly thought-through bumper sticker clichés that belong on the rear of some NPR-listening public school administrator’s Prius.  It’s about men and women who understood that sometimes doing the right thing means doing the hardest thing. (more…)

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Tags: Band of Brothers, Gettysburg, Library Tower, Memorial Day, Milosevic
Posted May 25th 2009 at 4:53 pm in Military | 142590No Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/kschlichter/2009/05/25/memorial-day-is-a-rejection-of-peacenik-foolishness/Memorial+Day%3A+A+Rejection+of+Peacenik+Foolishness2009-05-25+23%3A53%3A38Kurt+Schlichter

Ride 2 Recovery: Memorial Challenge

National Memorial Concert

The second annual Ride 2 Recovery Memorial Challenge is from May 25-30. For the first time, the event started with a cycling clinic featuring Olympic cyclist Wayne Stetina and former Mercury Cycling Team mechanic Scott Moro. With support from cycling professional like Gary Hanson and Neil Stewart, Vietnam vets Jim Penseyres and Duane Wagner, all of the R2R participants had a great deal of knowledge to learn the ins and outs of riding and healing.

The clinic really helped get the R2R participants oriented on their bikes and almost all of them had their riding positions fixed up and this will make for a much more comfortable ride.

The Wounded Warriors that participate in the Ride 2 Recovery events have come from all over the US and almost all service branches are represented. Many of these brave men and women have seen their friends and fellows soldiers not return from Iraq and Afghanistan. Memorial Day is not just another day off. (more…)

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Tags: Add new tag, Alternative Vehicles, American Legion Auxiliary, American Legion Riders, California American Legion
Posted May 25th 2009 at 1:48 pm in Military | 142822No Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/r2r/2009/05/25/ride-2-recovery-memorial-challenge/Ride+2+Recovery%3A+Memorial+Challenge2009-05-25+20%3A48%3A47Ride+2+Recovery

Freedom Isn’t Free

While volunteering for the McCain Campaign last year, I ran across a display of quotes by former President Ronald Reagan… One of them touched my heart so deeply that it inspired me to sit down and start writing a song as a tribute to our men and women in the United States Military.

The quote said… 

“We all share the love of peace, but our sons and daughters must learn two lessons men everywhere and in every time have had to learn:  that the price of freedom is dear, but not nearly as costly as the loss of freedom – and that the advance and continuation of civilization depend on those values for which men have always been willing to die for…” 

While some of our brave men and women in uniform have made it safely back home to their loved ones, others have come home wounded – their lives forever changed.  Yet still, there are those who have gone on to another home – paying the ultimate price for freedom… with their lives…  (more…)

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Tags: air force, America, army, Coast Guard, Freedom Isn't Free
Posted May 25th 2009 at 11:13 am in Military | 142862One Commenthttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/cstanton/2009/05/25/freedom-isnt-free/Freedom+Isn%27t+Free2009-05-25+18%3A13%3A57Chele+Stanton

Flashback: Hollywood Celebrates American Military Resolve

During this Memorial Day Weekend Big Hollywood pays tribute those who have fallen, and those who sacrifice so much in the cause of freedom.

Remember when Hollywood celebrities flocked across the globe to entertain and support American troops? Remember when Hollywood—as a community—denounced tyrants, Jew-haters, and mass murderers?

Joan Crawford as Miss Liberty

My father was a Rabbi, a Chaplain in the 42nd Division during World War II and the Korean War. He often told me just how much the troops loved and respected their Hollywood supporters.

Here’s just a brief sampler of what Hollywood patriotism once looked like.

(more…)

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Tags: Bette Davis, bob hope, Carole Landis, Carole Lombard, Clark Gable
Posted May 25th 2009 at 6:21 am in Entertainment, Military, Politics | 1405589 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/ravrech/2009/05/25/hollywood-celebrates-american-military-resolve%e2%80%94past-tense/Flashback%3A+Hollywood+Celebrates+American+Military+Resolve2009-05-25+13%3A21%3A06Robert+J.+Avrech

How Sean Penn Won the War

This week’s Washington Times column:

On this day in which Americans honor their war dead, perhaps a smidgen of our time should be spent reflecting on the unheralded and fearless wartime antics of Sean Penn.

Yes, that Sean Penn: Hollywood actor, director, tough guy and agent provocateur in America’s time of peril – a man history, no doubt, will credit with an assist in bringing democracy to Iraq.

It is now time for Mr. Penn to end his service to his country and commit to the next chapter in his life. He has done more than enough. America simply doesn’t make medals for Mr. Penn’s kind of service. Nor would he accept them. Now he must come clean and take on the next challenge of his career: Bring the rest of Hollywood to America’s aid by creating an army of underground patriots.

With a Democrat as commander in chief, it’s now or never for Tinseltown to get the patriotic bug. (more…)

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Tags: "Shock and Awe", Iraq, Memorial Day, Saddam Hussein, sean penn
Posted May 24th 2009 at 9:16 pm in Celebrity News, Entertainment, Featured Story, Military, Political Humor, Politics | 1427746 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/abreitbart/2009/05/24/how-sean-penn-won-the-war/How+Sean+Penn+Won+the+War2009-05-25+04%3A16%3A53Andrew+Breitbart