“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? 

Speaking to honor our fallen war heroes that day were several Hollywood notables including John Voight and Robert Davi.  They were reading letters sent home from distant battlefields and different wars.  Sent to loved ones by men they would never see again. 

As the program proceeded, a miracle happened.  It happened within our family – but I think it was happening everywhere that day, all across America really.  We forgot our petty differences for a moment.  We forgot to text.  We forgot who was on “American Idol” that week.  We forgot ‘it’s all about me’.

We remembered the soldier.

There were tears wept openly that day as these heart-rending letters were read.  A glowing warmth of pride descended upon this crowd as we sat there together and considered the people who were willing to serve to preserve our freedom. 

My daughter’s truculence had dissipated and been replaced with a sweet reverence.  After the program we wandered through the cemetery reading the headstones of veterans who had passed.  My daughter wandered off by herself, reading the names, fully engrossed in reverie for these heroes of past wars.  My wife nodded at her, squeezed my hand, and we watched her in quiet repose.  This was something new I was witnessing.  My daughter got it.

This recent Memorial Day was a good time for America.  And it was definitely a good day for my family.

I thought of times in our history when brave men in uniform demonstrated their courage.  And by ‘brave’ I mean – scared sh*tless, disoriented, fiercely committed, praying for help, screaming death and venom at evil, blasting away at the enemy, and…basically doing exactly what a soldier is expected to do.  Put himself in the line of fire to win the battle.

The 101st Airborne at Bastogne. The Marines at Chosin Reservoir.  Normandy.  Iwo Jima.  Saigon.  Fallujah, Iraq. Hindu-Kush, Afghanistan. The examples of American Military heroism are endless.

Jesus told us in the Bible that “no greater love hath a man that that would lay down his life for another.”  A prescient truth foretelling true self-sacrifice, as reflected in the Cross — our Lord’s final act of love on this earth.  Consider the love and selfless courage it would take for a G.I. in combat to throw himself onto a live grenade to save his fellow squad members.  Yet this has happened time and time again by our courageous troops, most recently, in Ramadi, Iraq by a young Navy SEAL Petty Officer 2nd Class Michael A. Monsoor. 

These acts of heroism are common, but seldom widely reported.  More often than not, they are buried beneath apparently more urgent stories like who won a talent contest or basketball championship. 

The many efforts of the Left to disparage and denigrate our servicemen are all too widespread.   Our troops are constantly being maligned as intellectually inferior and naively gullible. Ironically, the exact opposite is true.  In fact, the very highest of all human ideals and attributes is to be found by the men and women who serve in our military. 

My teenage daughter got it on May 30th.  She got that her carefree life of texting her friends and going to the mall and riding her horse is all made possible by the sacrifices our military men and women are willing to make on a daily basis.  They don’t demand our respect – but they are certainly worthy of it.

So the next time you hear some arrogant, pseudo-intellectual dipstick running his mouth about how our military is a bunch of ignorant, thug rednecks…step up to the Cretin and set him straight.  Idiocy, if tolerated, has a habit of turning into a cultural mindset…and pretty soon you have one of those ‘Zeitgeist’ things happening.  That’s how Political Correctness got started.  (And, not coincidentally, the Third Reich.) 

It’s time to cut that garbage off at the knees.  Educate yourself, America.  Re-examine our roots and our heritage and our history.  Contrary to what the America-hating revisionists want you to believe, America has a proud past of building from nothing a nation that is the contemporary cornerstone of freedom for all mankind.  We haven’t been perfect…but we’ve become the best the world has ever seen.  Build up a fire in your belly for America and all that she stands for, and stand up and shout your love of country and honor for the flag from the rooftops. 

If you’re not spitting out blood… you’re just not yelling loud enough.

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. “

The Vice Minister added, “England, on the other hand, fell very quickly after we dropped only a mere one quarter megaton of heavy water (D₂O) weaponry on their proud London back in 1946. Of course, we could continue to bombard the Russian outposts like we did London and where Paris once was, but it would contaminate any remaining soil. We’ve been trying to avoid this drastic measure. We are humanitarians, after all.”

The Vice Minister continued, “More to the point, it is vital to emphasize that the biological surrogate guardians of children reaching their seventh birthday are now required by law to enter their offspring’s identity number with a nearby STC (State Training Center) to begin the one year transition to the workforce. It is mandatory they comply with the new law. Penalties are harsh.”

EU News has faithfully reported in the past that administration policy is very clear on this issue. Biological surrogate guardians, bio-guardians, who refuse to surrender their unlawful offspring in a timely manner, will be sequestered by the administration’s Ministry of Adult Education for an indefinite period of time. Consequently, children found unattended will be conscripted into the workforce with any surviving surrogates losing visiting rights.

The Vice Minister added, “It’s in every bio-guardians’ interest to register the Fatherland’s children early. The earlier these children start their lives the easier it will be for them to make the transition from their surrogate households and purge those troubled lives from memory. It’s for their own good to cut those ties early. It’s natural and it’s the law.”

The governing Commanding Socialist Party of the European Union has announced that they have apprehended another 2500 political criminals across the nation. These individuals will be held temporarily in one of the New Spandau prison system facilities outside the EU Capital Center in Bonn until such time that more permanent facilities can be arranged, if needed.

In other news, the incoming Director of the Ministry of Allocations and Provisions has announced new shipments of household goods to be rationed out to the populace beginning next month as part of the new modernization plan.

“Citizens throughout the inner Fatherland nations of Deutschland, Austria and Switzerland in residential blocks A thru F can once again begin signing up for bread, water, salt, kerosene, and toilet paper as promised.”  The Director stated in an uplifting speech given earlier this week. ”Citizens in residential blocks G thru P can begin signing-up for potatoes, cloth, canvas, shoe leather, and slag metal. Citizens in blocks Q thru Z can sign-up for milk, cheese, and butter substitutes. These blocks will rotate. Everyone will eventually get a chance at all the household goods and items as required by law. Anyone found forging identity cards, ration coupons, altering their derma scancode, or cheating the system in any way will be dealt with harshly.”

The Director continued, “Subjects in outlying regions of old Europe, including territories referred to previously as Britain, Spain, France, Belgium, Luxemburg, Italy, Malta, Sardinia, Corsica, Sicily, Scandinavia, Poland, Turkey, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Bulgaria will begin similar initiatives as soon as allocations within the inner Fatherland areas are completed and fully verified. The same waiting period applies to the new North and South Amerikan territories in accordance with the Colonial Affairs Ministry which has local jurisdiction for those continents.”

The Director concluded with these words of reassurance, “Subjects in frontier regions such as Afrika will begin an experimental allocation program. The details of which are not to be made public at this time. The difficulties in supplying the vast continent of Afrika are enormous, as many are aware. I urge our subjects in Afrika to be patient. Remember, Rome wasn’t built in a day and the pestilent Jews and gypsies weren’t purged from our streets in a week! These things take time, but as we know, they do get done. ”

In Asian news, the Empire of Japan stated there was a brief power outage at a Human Resources Productivity Center in former Ceylon. About 70,000 workers suffocated in one of the vast underground graphite mines when the air supply was interrupted for several hours due to the power outage. The mine was flooded with hydrofluoric acid to aid in the cleaning and speedy removal of remains. Relatives are reminded that religious services for the deceased are prohibited.

A high-ranking official with Human Resources stated (off-the-record), “It (power outage) was most likely due to attempted sabotage by rebels.” He added, “We get troublemakers stirring things up from time to time. They’re just pests. And we have experience dealing with pests. It will be dealt with.”

Within hours of that statement approximately four hundred suspects were taken into custody from the outlying region and are presently assisting HR with inquiries. Next of kin will be notified where appropriate.

In a related story, the highly decorated Imperial Swordsman Unit of the Empire’s Honor Guard, known for their much-prized ability to dispatch multiple opponents while on horseback, is no longer recruiting volunteers from the populace to assist the unit in training and practice.

In agricultural news, the expansive rice crop harvest in the region has shown high increases in yields due to the new extended work hours. A government source stated, ”We’ve seen an enormous growth potential in limiting the amount of sleep our workers receive. By modeling their sleep habits on other animals, such as dogs and livestock, and supplementing this with pharmaceutical conditioning we’ve been able to reduce the total sleep time per day to 2.5 hours per subject. It’s a tremendous achievement. We plan to implement our research into all other areas of the labor force. This is a very exciting time in the field of science.”

Other so-called outsider regions known previously as Korea, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, Philippines, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, and Burma, now generally referred to collectively as Gaidashu, have seen only moderate yields. GACPS has announced plans to implement more robust cultural and genetic reintegration of these outlying regions, stating, “Citizens of even the most outlying regions of the Greater Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere must remember that the official language is Japanese and use of other, outsider, mongrel tongues is not only forbidden but is a direct insult to their role as subject in the service of the Empire. We have a no tolerance policy.” Violators of this policy, EU News has been told, will be transported to one of the following: Re-Education and Conscription Centers, dojos for assisting martial training of the military and to National Health Centers for volunteer work on pathogenic and contagious diseases research.

In a related story, the Empire’s successful testing of chemical and biological agents inside Manchuko, formerly known as China and Manchuria has yielded another 20 million liters of Cyanogen and Cyclosarin material necessary to ensure continued peace. Volunteers are still being recruited from the still mainly Chinese population in the area, eager to do their part in helping the Empire to attain its goals.

A government official remarking on a recent news blackout in the area stated, ”When testing such huge amounts such as we are required to do, accidents can and will happen. It’s part of the risk. Furthermore, we are announcing that several cities in the Sechuan area are off limits until further notice. Subjects who have relatives in these areas in former Southern China are reminded to be patient. Inquiries, as per government policy, will not be accepted. Trust is required. We are certain each and every subject understands this and will comply with regulations.”  He warned, “Be advised. Causing any disruption over this issue, or any other, is bound to meet with the strictest and most severe disciplinary action.”

That’s the way it is, May 2009. Good night and good luck.

(The information ministries of the Commanding Socialist Party of the European Union and Greater Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere contributed to this report. This news summary has been translated from German and Japanese into English for educational purposes only.)

Link: THE WORLD TODAY

Copyright © CSPEU/GACPS 2009.

What you have just read never happened. It is not the world we are living in today.

Thank you to all the men and women of the United States Armed Forces who gave their youth, their health and their lives over sixty years ago to prevent the nightmare such as the one depicted above from becoming today’s reality.

Not only on Memorial Day, but other days as well, let us take time to reflect on all that we have gained from those who gave everything they had.

- Schizoid Mann

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.

For years, organizations like Code Pink, A.N.S.W.E.R., and MEChA have inflicted lunatic be-ins on a horrified public, the collective psychedelic derangement of which makes The Rocky Horror Picture Show look like A Room With a View. But then Freedom’s Watch arrived on the scene — let’s call them Code Red, White and Blue — and they came determined to honor our troops, damn the cost. In August of ‘07, they first attempted to buy ad-time on major networks to run commercials supporting the war in Iraq. While Fox and CNN broadcast them without issue, NBC and its sister networks deemed them too controversial, which is liberal Pig Latin for too partisan, too outside the mainstream — in a word, too conservative. At the time, Freedom’s Watch president Bradley A. Blakeman wrote a polite letter to NBC, pointing out that the network has a long record of accepting ads from nakedly progressive groups without the slightest qualm.

(The Bob Hope display at the National Museum of the United States Air Force near Dayton, Ohio.)

He might also have added, “That plaintive whining sound you hear is Bob Hope spinning in his grave.” As Hollywood’s most beloved wartime icon, the British-born comedian spent a half-century enriching NBC’s coffers while praising our military at every turn. His 1970 and ‘71 Christmas Specials, filmed on the ground in Vietnam, still rank among the most-watched television shows of all-time. But save for an impressive schiltron of American flags displayed on holidays, Hope’s legacy long ago faded from 30 Rockefeller Plaza. In the end, the network’s wingtipped, Armani-clad Brahmins never deigned to answer Blakeman’s letter, quietly consigning his request for ad-time to the good ol’ circular filing cabinet, one with a metaphorical temperature edging dangerously close to Ray Bradbury’s dystopian 451 degrees.

Then in December of ‘07, Freedom’s Watch tried again with a pair of innocuous commercials that, to this viewer, soothed and fortified like exquisite mouthfuls of Mom’s home cooking. These new spots depicted people from all walks of life offering simple, heartfelt benedictions to our troops, and while their aura of optimism recalled Reagan’s “It’s Morning in America” ads, the underlying message was, by any reasonable standard, universal. Judge for yourself:

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Astoundingly, these too were rejected by a sober-faced NBC. The problem this time? Including FW’s web address on the tail-end of each ad, an act which apparently violated the network’s Standards and Practices.

Standards and Practices…boy, that’s rich. In recent years, NBC’s practices have famously included living the high life at the expense of the companies they cover, as well as manufacturing stories on everything from anti-Muslim hate crimes to exploding cars. In the process, they’ve degenerated from a once-proud news bastion into the peacock battalion of America’s fifth column, force-feeding viewers doom-and-gloom propaganda slickly masqueraded as unbiased news. Running a sincere message of hope in a time of war would indeed appear to go against everything they stand for these days, although — who knows? — it might help them reverse their agonizing slide into their lowest news ratings in over twenty years.

Freedom’s Watch president Blakeman promptly fired off a new letter of protest, but few believed he’d have better luck than last time — that is, until storm clouds started to form on the public-relations horizon. Cruising the conservative blogosphere in the days following the rejection, I could sense astonishment quickly hardening into genuine outrage. In forum after forum, the network began getting an earful from Americans with friends and family in the armed services. Soon the cacophony had grown to the point where NBC announced that it was reversing course and amending its (allow me to gird myself to say the words with a straight face) Standards and Practices.

And so, just like that, Freedom’s Watch won. Not an election or a court case, but merely the simple right to buy, at great expense, the time with which to say “thank you” to our heroic fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, friends and spouses fighting and dying in faraway lands. This confrontation proved instructive. As Robert Avrech’s Memorial Day post here at Big Hollywood showed, conservatives often pine for the olden days when America was largely united on patriotic matters. It seems possible to at least partially resurrect that (semi-mythical) time, but only if we insist on more from our shared broadcast media than the desiccated “standards and practices” of a corrupt liberal thugocracy.

During that holiday season of 2007, the NBC show with the most cultural buzz was Heroes, a sleeper hit about ordinary people mysteriously imbued with comic-book superpowers. It’s nice to know that — courtesy of Freedom’s Watch — America’s real-life heroes were honored on NBC during that Christmas as well. Granted, we only got it in precious little windows of thirty seconds each, but it was a start on the long road toward cultural recovery and renewal.

Freedom’s Watch was a victim of the collapsing economy of 2008, and there will be no new Christmas commercials from them thanking our troops. But one imagines that in December of 2007, somewhere in the heavens, Bob Hope cracked a smile at all of the people who twisted NBC’s corporate arm and said, “Thanks for the Memory.”

Those conservatives pining for a bit of that ol’ time patriotism can buy Bob Hope: The Vietnam Years (1964-1972).

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.

Violence can solve things.  Hitler – solved.  Tojo – solved.  Saddam – solved.  Sometimes it takes time:  Bin Laden – solution pending.  But all the earnest teach-ins and doofy drum circles in the world haven’t kept one Darfurian from being killed by the janjaweed Islamist militia.  The only thing that will ever do that is a division of Marines; until the activists call for the Devil Dogs to go in, they’re just posing.

Frequently, war is the answer.  With the sorry state of history education in America, it’s easy to see how some people could embrace the delusion that there is nothing worth fighting for.  But the Nazi concentration camps didn’t liberate themselves.  Bosnia and Kosovo’s ethnic cleansing didn’t end because Milosevic got a pretty please with sugar on top.  And the Taliban aren’t about to see the light and stop throwing acid in schoolgirl’s faces for the crime of wanting to learn to read. 

War and violence aren’t the only answers – I worked in civil affairs on one deployment and we made a huge difference without firing a shot.  Sometimes American soldiers’ arms are for hugging – I’ve seen that too – but before you can build a peace you have to enforce security.  That means a grunt standing watch, M4 in hand, with a pilot in an F-15 overhead and a destroyer off-shore.

What is ironic is that Hollywood, for all its superficial peacenik posing, gets it.  The messages of two of the biggest movies out right now, Star Trek and Terminator Salvation, are that there are things worth fighting for and dying for.  Sadly, Hollywood feels the need to cloak that truth in the guise of battles against pointy-eared space aliens and death-dealing cyborgs that look like our governor. 

Hollywood, just lose the metaphors.  It would be nice to see a straight-up movie about the sacrifices of American soldiers in the War on Terror that doesn’t replace jihadi psychos with Romulans or SkyNet. 

Memorial Day is the perfect occasion to embrace the truth.  Do not listen to those who say that it is just another day off where people do nothing but drink beer and eat barbecue with their buddies.  That’s a strawman offered up by the bumper sticker set because they fear Memorial Day’s true meaning.   

At the risk of being presumptuous, those who gave their lives for our country would want you to gather your buddies and drink beers and eat barbecue (Resolved:  Barbecued beef ribs are superior in every way to pork ribs.  Discuss.).   I plan to.  There is a reason that on Memorial Day the flag flies at half-staff only until noon, when it is raised to the top of the pole again.  It symbolizes that we honor our dead by going forward with our lives.

Honor our fallen by remembering them, and just as importantly, what they did.  We can do that best by confronting the nonsense that surrounds us by telling the stories of these brave American men and women.  When little Jimmy comes home confused because the teacher said that America is irremediably racist, you tell him about the Union soldiers who fell at Gettysburg.  When your daughter tells you her textbook says that World War II was really instigated by war profiteers, pop in the disc of the Band of Brothers episode where Easy Company stumbles onto a Nazi death camp.  When your son asks what that bumper sticker saying “End the War” means, you tell him about what the cops and firefighters had to do on 9/11.  Let the truth be your tribute.

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.

Memorial Day is a United States federal holiday observed on the last Monday of May (May 25 in 2009). Formerly known as Decoration Day, it commemorates U.S. men and women who died while in the military service. First enacted to honor Union soldiers of the American Civil War (it is celebrated near the day of reunification after the civil war), it was expanded after World War I to include American casualties of any war or military action.

View from Iwo Jima

This R2R ride goes thru some of the most historical areas of our country especially the Civil and Revolutionary War periods. The first stop on the route is Manassas, where the first major battle of the Civil War took place. On the way, the group will go past Mt. Vernon, the home of George Washington.

The ride will kick-off with the National Memorial Parade, where the warriors and the American Legion Riders will be a part of the parade and then head down to Manassas.

This R2R ride is the largest group yet to take part in the ride. Over the next six days, we will bring you their stories.

We really look forward to bringing you all of the action……

Regards,

Ride 2 Recovery
Making a Difference in the Lives of Wounded Warriors
818.888.7091×1
818.710.1453 Fax
www.Ride2Recovery.com

You can also follow the ride by joining our Facebook Ride 2 Recovery group.

Supporters include American Legion Auxiliary, USO, Star Trac, VFW, Otis Spunkmeyer, Sunkist, Giant Bicycles, League of American Bicyclists, Operation Rebound, American Legion Riders, Step Up 4 Vets, California American Legion, Coca-Cola, Shimano, Veltec Sports, Hincapie Sports, Alternative Vehicles, Hansen’s, Clif Bar, Rudy Project, DeFeet, Park Tool, Speedplay, ProMax, Chamois Butt’r, CytoSport, and Bicycling Magazine. R2R is an America Supports You Homefront Group.

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… 

May we always remember and NEVER forget… Freedom Isn’t Free. 

FREEDOM ISN’T FREE 

Freedom isn’t free – It takes a sacrifice
The courage to believe – In doing what is right
Protecting all that’s dear – Through the blood, the sweat, the tears
No, freedom isn’t free 

Freedom isn’t free – It takes a sacrifice
The willingness to love – And fight for what is right
Protecting all that’s dear – Should be clear to you and me
That freedom isn’t free 

From the halls of Montezuma – To the shores of Tripoli
We will fight our Country’s battles – In the quest for liberty
Over hill and dale and sky and sea – Freedom’s price is dear
But greater is the cost – To see our freedom lost 

Oh say can you see – By the dawn’s early light
America, America – Is shining bright
And to all those who fought – For the Home of the Brave
We thank you, thank you – For all you gave 

Freedom isn’t free – It takes a sacrifice
A daughter or a son – A husband or a wife
A sister or a brother – A father or a mother
No, freedom isn’t free 

Freedom isn’t free – It takes a sacrifice
A daughter or a son – A husband or a wife
A sister or a brother – A father or a mother
A neighbor or a stranger – To keep us safe from danger
Protecting all that’s dear – Through the blood, the sweat, the tears
No, freedom isn’t free 

Protecting all that’s dear – Through the blood, the sweat, the tears
No, freedom isn’t free 

Protecting all that’s dear – Should be clear to you and me
Through the blood, the sweat, the tears – We will fight for liberty
And with faith in God above – We’ll preserve this Land we love
Though freedom isn’t free 

Make no mistake about it – You wouldn’t want to live without it
But freedom isn’t……….. Free

Copyright -Chele Stanton 2009

FOR ALL THOSE WHO SERVE AND HAVE SERVED
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
THE LAND OF THE FREE AND
THE HOME OF THE BRAVE

WILLINGLY… COURAGEOUSLY… SACRIFICIALLY… 

THANK YOU… THANK YOU…
WE ARE FOREVER GRATEFUL

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.

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In February 1954, on her honeymoon in Japan with Joe DiMaggio, Marilyn Monroe took time off and traveled to Korea to entertain the troops. Monroe appeared on stage wearing skimpy outfits in freezing temperatures. The men adored her. She performed ten shows in four days, in front of audiences that totaled more than 100,000 soldiers and Marines.

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Marilyn performs Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend.

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Dinah Shore, a hugely popular singer, traveled with USO tours throughout Europe. During one of her tours she met actor George Montgomery. They married in 1943. Soon after the wedding, Montgomery entered active service.

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In the late 1930’s Nazi agents approached Marlene Dietrich and asked her to return to Germany. She flatly turned them down. Dietrich was one of the first celebrities to raise war bonds. She entertained troops on the front lines in dozens of USO shows. Dietrich hated the Nazis and often spoke out against anti-Semitism. Here, she’s autographing the cast of Earl E. McFarland at U.S. hospital in Belgium 1944.

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Carole Landis probably logged more miles than any other actress in Hollywood during WWII entertaining American troops. She wrote a book about her experiences, Four Jills in a Jeep. Tragically, this generous but deeply unhappy young woman committed suicide in 1948 while carrying on a desperate affair with the married actor Rex Harrison—a notorious womanizer.

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Bob Hope, friend to GI’s, entertains American servicemen at the airstrip in Munda, New Georgia, an island in the central Solomons, on Oct. 31, 1944. Hope’s commitment to America’s troops brought him into four wars: World War II, the Korean War, Viet Nam and the Persian Gulf War. When on tour the great comedian usually performed in Army fatigues. A 1997 act of Congress signed by President Clinton named Bob Hope an “Honorary Veteran.”

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Carole Lombard raised millions of dollars selling war bonds. Tragically, she died in an airplane crash on January 15, 1942, after completing an eight-hour sales drive in Indiana in which she raised $2,017,513 in bonds . She was anxious to reunite with Clark Gable; they had only been married for three years. The last thing she said to him was: “You better get yourself into this man’s army.”

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Following Lombard’s death, deeply depressed and drinking too much, Gable rallied and asked MGM to release him from his contract. He joined the U.S. Army Air Forces. Most of Gable’s friends believed that Hollywood’s greatest leading man was seeking death. Far too old for active service, Gable worked hard to earn his stripes. Gable trained with and accompanied the 351st Heavy Bomb Group as head of a 6-man motion picture unit making a gunnery training film. Gable flew five combat missions in B17’s. In one mission over Germany he was almost killed when a German 20mm shell exploded through the plane’s floor and ripped the heel from one of Gable’s flight boots. Adolf Hitler offered a million dollar bounty to anyone who captured Gable and brought him back to Germany as a POW. Gable was Hitler’s favorite actor. Gable left the Army Air Forces with the rank of Major.

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Jimmy Stewart was a B-24 pilot in World War Two and flew twenty missions over Europe. Stewart ended the war as a command pilot and stayed in the Air Force Reserves until 1968, when he retired as a Brigadier General.

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The Hollywood Canteen, 1451 Cahuenga Boulevard in Hollywood, California was open from October 3, 1942 until the end of World War II. The club offered food and entertainment for American servicemen. The founders of the Canteen were Bette Davis, John Garfield and composer Jules Stein. All costs and labor for The Hollywood Canteen were donated by the various Hollywood guilds and unions.

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In the Hollywood Canteen, Bette Davis ladles out food for American servicemen. Davis devoted enormous amounts of time to the Canteen and served as its President. When funds ran low, she reached into her own pocketbook to cover expenses. Glamorous stars like Olivia De Havilland, Edward G. Robinson, Hedy Lamarr, Frank Sinatra, Dorothy Lamour, Cary Grant, Lauren Bacall, Randolph Scott and hundreds of others, volunteered to wait on tables, cook in the kitchen and clean up. Notable by their absence in the Hollywood Canteen were three great stars: Jimmy Cagney, Greta Garbo and Charlie Chaplin. In 1944, Warner Bros. produced a star-studded film—a revue really—about the Hollywood Canteen. When the Canteen closed its doors in November 1945, it had hosted almost three million servicemen.

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Never Forget

Copyright © Robert J. Avrech

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.

Since his friends and political allies don’t read this column, I feel comfortable outing the left-wing agitator as an unsung patriot in the war on terrorism. I know that other entertainment media outlets are working this blockbuster story and that the mainstream media is still figuring out how to play it. Like in his Oscar-winning acting, Mr. Penn has broken all the rules.

In late 2002, Mr. Penn toured Saddam Hussein’s Baghdad with his camera and offered the Pentagon precise locations for bombing. “Shock and Awe” was a rousing success to a great extent because a courageous and humble actor put country first and used a pliant media to create a believable character: an angry Hollywood actor turned antiwar activist and citizen journalist.

There’s a reason we call him America’s greatest actor: We all believed it!

Who else could he have gotten a camera into Saddam’s media-controlled country right before we went to war? Countless lives were saved because Mr. Penn isolated Ba’athist strongholds and made sure that hospitals and nurseries were spared.

In a profession in which reputation is everything, Mr. Penn has been willing to sacrifice his own to ensure the good guys won and that millions of Iraqis were emancipated from unspeakable human rights horrors. The media would have crucified him if he were open to making millions of Iraqis free. So instead he went underground. Deep underground. Times are too complicated for a straightforward hero – so we got an edgy, postmodern one. Cool.

You can read the column in full here.