Radney Foster - Angel Flight (Radio Tower Remix)

This weekend is Memorial Day, the traditional BBQ kickoff to summer.  But on these shores, it's the day to remember the fallen from past - and current - wars.  The day was originally called Decoration Day, the date was at the very beginning of summer so that wild flowers would be available everywhere for families to decorate the graves of their fallen loved ones.

Many had no graves to decorate, as their loved one had an anonymous foreign grave for their final rest.  Today the Texas Air National Guard (and others) bring the fallen home on "Angel Flights".  This weekend, remember them.  Both the quick and the dead.

Rest in Peace, Colonel

 

If you are of a certain age, you will remember this Pultizer Prize winning photograph of a US Air Force officer returning from the Hanoi Hilton in 1974.

Dwight has the details, and it is quite a sad story.  Rest In Peace, COL Stirm.  I hope you now truly have the opportunity to put out your hand and touch the face of God.
 

Rest in peace, Flight Lt

Dwight (my go-to guy for obituaries) has one worth your time: the last WWII recipient of the Victoria Cross takes off on his final flight.

For those on this side of the Pond who are unfamiliar with the VC, it is the UK equivalent of the US Medal Of Honor: awarded for bravery above and beyond the call of duty under fire. It (as the HoH) is very often awarded posthumously.  Flight Lt. Cruickshank survived the war to the ripe old age of 105, the oldest WWII VC recipient.

As with many who served - and very, very many of those awarded these decorations - he kept an enormous humility.  I love this quote from Dwight's post: 

…he told The Daily Telegraph, “The citation said ‘showed great courage’ and all that nonsense, but a lot of people would have done that in those circumstances.”

Translation: No, I wasn't a hero in the war.  But I served in a Company of heroes.

Ave atque vale, Flight Lieutenant. May your Final Review be in Glory.

Memorial Day

 

This weekend isn't about cookouts

I was flying to Dad's memorial service back in 2011.  This was the view out of my airplane window:

 I'll reproduce here what I liveblogged from my phone:

My flight to Detroit just touched down.  The flight attendants came on  the PA asking everyone to remain seated when we reach the gate, so some  soldiers returning back to Afghanistan.

Everyone clapped.  Everyone.

Then the Captain came on.  He said we were taking a fallen soldier home.  You could have heard a pin drop.

God Speed, whoever you are.  I can't imagine any thanks can possibly fill the void your family feels.

We're  at the gate, and the plane is clapping for the soldiers again.  Out the  window, you can see the cars lined up on the tarmac for our fallen  hero.  Everyone' crowded around the windows.

It feels like you're in church - that you're in the presence of something holy.

 

That weekend Dad was much on my mind that weekend, but this wasn't an old man coming home to lie with his brothers, it was someone in the flush of youth.  Someone who didn't get the chance to bury his father; on the contrary, someone whose father met him on the tarmac on his last flight.

Maybe Donald Trump is doing something to end the endless wars we've been in these two decades or more.  At least we've brought the fallen home.

This weekend I don't think that the fallen would begrudge you your time with family and friends.  But remember them.

The Few are now the None

The last of the Battle of Britain RAF pilots reports to the final muster.

America's Dunkirk

I was going to post this yesterday, but ASM826 posted about the victims of that day.  But this story is exceptionally well-told and deserves to be remembered.

No training.  This was just what people did that day.

- One of the captains that evacuated Manhattan on 9/11 

It's not quite fair to call this "America's Dunkirk", since the English Channel is a lot wider than the Hudson River.  And the Luftwaffe had something to say in 1940, that they didn't have in 2001.

But this is a great story, well told by Tom Hanks.  About the time that the Coast Guard sent out a radio message to all boats that can help evacuate Manhattan.  This is the story of the boats who responded, and evacuated a Million people in a day.

 I've posted about this before.  But this seems somehow apropos.  And click through to that post to see the comment from Friend Of The Blog Paul, Dammit! who knows a bunch of the people interviewed in this.  It's worth your time. 

A day for remembering

80 years ago the Allies stormed the Atlantic Wall.

Via Chris Lynch, we see that the French High School kids in Normandy remember.

82 years ago was the battle of Midway.  The torpedo bombers sacrificed themselves almost to a man but that opened the way for the dive bombers to rip the heart out of the Imperial Japanese Navy.

106 years ago the Marines went on the assault at Belleau Woods in the Great War.  It was one of the costliest days in Marine Corps history, and took heroes like First Sergent Dan Daly to rally the men: Come on you sons of bitches!  Do you want to live forever?

 

Truly a day for remembering.  Remember them.

Google has a remembrance today, too.

Some lesbian writer.  So brave, no doubt.  So very brave.  

Hey Google - french kids spent minutes chanting U-S-A!  You might ponder what that means.

There are only 61 living Medal Of Honor recipients

There used to be 62.   God speed, sir.

Rest in peace, and rise in Glory.

Jo Dee Messina - Heaven Was Needing A Hero

Memorial Day is the traditional start of summer.  Beach, swimming pools, and backyard barbecue is the agenda for most.  But that's not what the day is about.  I posted this twelve years ago and it still captures the spirit of this weekend.  Christian Golczynski is around twenty five years old now.

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Memorial Day isn't about barbecues for Christian Golczynski.  He was eight years old when LTC Ric Thompson handed him the flag that had draped his father's coffin.  That was five years ago.

This weekend will be the fifth Memorial Day where he won't be thinking about barbecues.  Next month will be the fifth Father's Day with an empty chair at the dinner table.

That is what Memorial Day is about.

I've posted this song a number of times over the last year or two, as it captures in music the sound of a heart breaking.  The song alternates between memories of the loved and lost, and the stumbling emptiness as the singer tries - and fails - to make sense of the loss.  It's not your typical sentimental Country music song, it's pure, 100 proof grief.

For some, that is what Memorial Day is about.

There is no official music video for this song; Messina is no longer the chart topping singer that she was in the 1990s.  But people have taken this music and found photographs that amplify the music and make it personal.  The second picture is one that I found particularly moving - nearly as much as the one of young Master Golczynski shown here.

This is what Memorial Day is about. 



Heaven Was Needing A Hero (songwriter: Jo Dee Messina)

I came by today to see you
Though I had to let you know
If I knew the last time that I held you was the last time,
I'd have held you and never let go
Oh it's kept me awake night wonderin'
Lie in the dark, just asking "why?"
I've always been told you won't be called home until it's your time

I guess Heaven was needing a hero
Somebody just like you
Brave enough to stand up for what you believe and follow it though
When I try to make it make sense in my mind
The only conclusion I come to
Is that Heaven was needing a hero like you

I remember the last time I saw you
Oh you held your head up proud
I laughed inside when I saw how you were, standing out in the crowd
You're such a part of who I am
Now that part will just be void
No matter how much I need you now
Heaven needed you more

'Cause Heaven was needing a hero
Somebody just like you
Brave enough to stand up for what you believe and follow it though
When I try to make it make sense in my mind
The only conclusion I come to
Is that Heaven was needing a hero like you

Yes, Heaven was needing a hero...that's you.

Abraham Lincoln's letter to Mrs. Bixby is justly famous:

Executive Mansion,
Washington, Nov. 21, 1864.

Dear Madam,

I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.

Yours, very sincerely and respectfully,

A. Lincoln

Christian Golczynski also laid a sacrifice on that same altar of our freedom, a sacrifice costly beyond our reckoning.  I hope that the fullness of time will ease his anguish as well.  I fear that it will not.

That is what Memorial Day is about.  Not a barbecue in sight, just pure, 100 proof grief.  This weekend as you go about your normal business of life, remember SSgt Marcus Golczynski.  And Christian.  And what that sacrifice means.  May this Republic be worthy of them.

Mozart - Requiem in D

The older I get, the grumpier I get.  Sometimes I look on our society and feel like I am getting my Jeremiah on, which is never a good look.

Memorial Day is one of the times that this reliably happens.  Look, people, this holiday is not about barbecues and beach.

Remember them, that their memory not fade.

Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine.  Et lux perpetua luceat eis.  Amen.

The last American WWII triple ace takes off on his last flight

I love that he named his P-51 "Old Crow", after his favorite whiskey. 

Rest in peace and rise in Glory, General.

Last survivor from USS Arizona weighs anchor for the final voyage

As you'd expect, Dwight has the skinny.  Moving from battleships to naval aviation, he flew 200 combat missions and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.  Then he came back for Korea.

Go read his story.  Giants strode the face of the earth back then.

Fair winds and following seas, Lieutenant Commander.

Rest In Peace, sniper

SGT Chuck Mawhinney - the greatest Marine Corps sniper ever - has reported to the final muster.  As always, Dwight has the writeup (highly recommended).

What struck me was what he did when he came back from Vietnam.  Seeing how other veterans were treated, he pretty much dropped the whole military thing - he got a job with the Forest Service, hunted and shot trap, married and had kids, and seems to have been one of the solid, quiet, dependable community guys.

Then his story came out in the 1990s when the country was ready to treat the 'Nam vets right.  He got some much deserved recognition then, but the years before strike me as nothing so much as a sniper knowing how not to be seen.

103 confirmed kills with another 216 probables.  Wow.

Rest in peace, Sargent.

Now get on over to Dwight's place and read the amazing story.

Patrick Doyle - St. Crispin's Day from "Henry V"

Yesterday was Veteran's/Remembrance Day, a day we honor those who have served.  Many don't, and for those we have the words from the Bard of Avon, who described the bond between veterans better than anything ever written in the English language.

The 1989 film is a masterpiece.  If you haven't seen it you are in store for a treat.  Not only was it an all-star Shakespearean cast, but Patrick Doyle's score is a tour de force. one made more impressive because it was his very first film score.

Film critic (and notorious grump) Roger Ebert wrote of Kenneth Branagh's St. Crispin's Day speech:

There is no more stirring summons to arms in all of literature than Henry's speech to his troops on St. Crispan's  Day, ending with the lyrical 'We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.' To deliver this speech successfully is to pass the acid test for anyone daring to perform the role of Henry V in public, and as Kenneth Branagh, as Henry, stood up on the dawn of the Battle of Agincourt and delivered the famous words, I was emotionally stirred even though I had heard them many times before. That is one test of a great Shakespearian actor: to take the familiar and make it new.

I've posted this scene many time here on this blog, and it never gets old or stale. It is, after all, the best description of the bonds between veterans ever penned in the English language.

The end of the War To End War

This day is less somber in the USA - we have our remembrance day in May with Memorial Day (which pre-dates Remembrance Day by some 50 years).  Today on these shores it's "Thank a Veteran" Day.

But in Europe and the ANZAC nations, this remembers when a whole generation was butchered and damned.

You can visit young Willie McBride in the Authuille Military Cemetery, grave A.36.

Et lux perpetua luceat eis.

WWII video of the Bismark firing on HMS Hood

 

The most interesting comment at Youtube is this:

You can clearly see the inacurate opening salvos of Hood well ahead and aft of Bismark, using the slow and fatally time losing Royal Navy technique of stradling the target.

Using the Ziess optical range finding system Bismark opened up very accurately almost on target with her first salvos. This was referenced by Esmond Knight, who was fall of shot spotting for Hood, from his position on the bridge of Prince of Wales.

Mr Knight said the first falls of shot from Bismark on Hood were "far too close for comfort."

Having "disposed of the Hood, Bismark turned her devastating fire power on Prince of Wales and a 15 inch shell from Bismarck passed directly through Prince of Wales' bridge killing everyone except the Captain , a couple of other crew" and blinding Lt Esmond Knight RNVR.

In the film Sink the Bismark (clip available on You Tube), Knight (an actor before WW2 ) actually was asked by the Director to act the role of Captain of the Prince of Wales, and duffle coated in the film on the bridge of the Prince of Wales removes the binoculars from his blind eyes having watched the destruction of Hood. Immediately after this moment he was blinded in the real action.

 

America's Dinkirk

No training.  This was just what people did that day.

- One of the captains that evacuated Manhattan on 9/11 

It's not quite fair to call this "America's Dunkirk", since the English Channel is a lot wider than the Hudson River.  And the Luftwaffe had something to say in 1940, that they didn't have in 2001.

But this is a great story, well told by Tom Hanks.  About the time that the Coast Guard sent out a radio message to all boats that can help evacuate Manhattan.  This is the story of the boats who responded, and evacuated a Million people in a day.

I've posted about this before.  But this seems somehow apropos.  And click through to that post to see the comment from Friend Of The Blog Paul, Dammit! who knows a bunch of the people interviewed in this.  It's worth your time.  

And you do read his blog every day, don't you?  Thought so.

D-Day + 79 (years)

There's quite a discussion in the comments over at Peter's place about whether Lindbergh was right (probably) and by implication whether we should have sat WWII out.

Once the Japanese attacked us at Pearl Harbor and then Adolf Hitler declared war on us the following day, that ship had sailed.  These men fought because we had been attacked, and because Hitler had thrown his hat into the ring with Tojo.

As Big Country likes to say, period, dot.

Having stood at the top of that ridge at Omaha beach, and having walked the grounds of that cemetery, remember the men of that day.

Your reads for today

Divemedic reminds us that not all service deaths were combat deaths. Juvat reminds us that not all service deaths were service members.

Enjoy your day but spare a thought for these heroes.

UPDATE 29 MAY 2023 13:23: Dwight takes a day off from his regular fare of obits and which sports coach got fired, to remind us of combat casualties as well.  Remember their stories.