[FONT=Arial]My daily prayer……[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Lord please bless our American servicemen and women. Especially those serving in Iraq and Afghanistan and in other countries where people would seek to harm them.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Please grant them; courage, faith, clarity of mind, clarity of vision and quick physical reactions. Please give them good hot food, cold drinks and a warm SAFE comfortable place to sleep. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]I ask these blessing in the name of your son Jesus Christ…. Amen.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman]VIETNAM STATISTICS: A REMINDER FOR VETERAN’S DAY[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman]There are 58,267 names now listed on that polished black wall, including those added in 2010.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]The names are arranged in the order in which they were taken from us by date[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]and within each date, the names are alphabetized. [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman]It is hard to believe it is 36 years since the last casualties.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Beginning at the apex on panel 1E and going out to the end of the East wall,[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]appearing to recede into the earth (numbered 70E - May 25, 1968, [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Then resuming at the end of the West wall, as the wall emerges from the earth[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman](numbered 70W - continuing May 25, 1968 and ending with a date in 1975. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Thus, the war’s beginning and end meet. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]The war is complete, coming full circle, yet broken by the earth that bounds the angle’s open side and contained within the earth itself.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]The first known casualty was Richard B. Fitzgibbon, of North Weymouth , Mass. listed by the U.S. Department of Defense as having been killed on June 8, 1956.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]His name is listed on the Wall with that of his son, Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Richard B. Fitzgibbon III, who was killed on Sept. 7, 1965.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]There are three sets of fathers and sons on the Wall.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]39,996 on the Wall were just 22 or younger.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]The largest age group, 8,283 were just 19 years old[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]3,103 were 18 years old.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]12 soldiers on the Wall were 17 years old.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]5 soldiers on the Wall were 16 years old.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]One soldier, PFC Dan Bullock was 15 years old.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]997 soldiers were killed on their first day in Vietnam .[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]1,448 soldiers were killed on their last day in Vietnam.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]31 sets of brothers are on the Wall.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Thirty-one sets of parents lost two of their sons.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]54 soldiers on the Wall attended Thomas Edison High School in Philadelphia .[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]I wonder why so many from one school.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]8 Women are on the Wall. Nursing the wounded.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]244 soldiers were awarded the Medal of Honor during the Vietnam War; 153 of them are on the Wall.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Beallsville , Ohio with a population of 475 lost 6 of her sons.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]West Virginia had the highest casualty rate per capita in the nation. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]There are 711 West Virginians on the Wall.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]The Marines of Morenci – They led some of the scrappiest high school football and basketball teams that the little Arizona copper town of Morenci (pop. 5,058 had ever known and cheered. They enjoyed roaring beer busts.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]In quieter moments, they rode horses along the Coronado Trail, stalked deer in the Apache National Forest and in the patriotic camaraderie typical of Morenci’s mining families, the nine graduates of Morenci High enlisted as a group in the Marine Corps. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Their service began on Independence Day, 1966.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Only 3 returned home.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]The Buddies of Midvale - LeRoy Tafoya, Jimmy Martinez, Tom Gonzales were all boyhood friends and lived on three consecutive streets in Midvale, Utah on Fifth, Sixth and Seventh avenues. They lived only a few yards apart. They played ball at the adjacent sandlot ball field. And they all went to Vietnam …[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]In a span of 16 dark days in late 1967, all three would be killed. LeRoy was killed on Wednesday, Nov. 22, the fourth anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s assassination. Jimmy died less than 24 hours later on Thanksgiving Day. Tom was shot dead assaulting the enemy on Dec. 7, Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]The most casualty deaths for a single day was on January 31, 1968 ~ 245 deaths.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]The most casualty deaths for a single month was May 1968 - 2,415 casualties were incurred.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]That is 2,415 dead in a single month.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Let us not forget all of the brave men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice in Vietnam and those who have paid the price in Iraq and Afghanistan. [/FONT]
***Somewhere a True Believer is training to kill you. He is training with minimal food or water, in austere conditions, training day and night. The only thing clean on him is his weapon and he made his web gear. He doesn’t worry about what workout to do - his ruck weighs what it weighs, his runs end when the enemy stops chasing him. ***
This True Believer is not concerned about ‘how hard it is;’ he knows either he wins or dies. He doesn’t go home at 17:00, he is home.
He knows only The Cause.
Still want to quit?
[FONT=Arial]A Message to Garcia[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]By Elbert Hubbard[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]In all this Cuban business there is one man stands out on the horizon of my memory like Mars at perihelion. When war broke out between Spain & the United States, it was very necessary to communicate quickly with the leader of the Insurgents. Garcia was somewhere in the mountain vastness of Cuba- no one knew where. No mail nor telegraph message could reach him. The President must secure his cooperation, and quickly.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]What to do![/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Some one said to the President, “There’s a fellow by the name of Rowan will find Garcia for you, if anybody can.”[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Rowan was sent for and given a letter to be delivered to Garcia. How “the fellow by the name of Rowan” took the letter, sealed it up in an oil-skin pouch, strapped it over his heart, in four days landed by night off the coast of Cuba from an open boat, disappeared into the jungle, & in three weeks came out on the other side of the Island, having traversed a hostile country on foot, and delivered his letter to Garcia, are things I have no special desire now to tell in detail.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]The point I wish to make is this: McKinley gave Rowan a letter to be delivered to Garcia; Rowan took the letter and did not ask, “Where is he at?” By the Eternal! there is a man whose form should be cast in deathless bronze and the statue placed in every college of the land. It is not book-learning young men need, nor instruction about this and that, but a stiffening of the vertebrae which will cause them to be loyal to a trust, to act promptly, concentrate their energies: do the thing- “Carry a message to Garcia!”[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]General Garcia is dead now, but there are other Garcia’s.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]No man, who has endeavored to carry out an enterprise where many hands were needed, but has been well nigh appalled at times by the imbecility of the average man- the inability or unwillingness to concentrate on a thing and do it. Slip-shod assistance, foolish inattention, dowdy indifference, & half-hearted work seem the rule; and no man succeeds, unless by hook or crook, or threat, he forces or bribes other men to assist him; or mayhap, God in His goodness performs a miracle, & sends him an Angel of Light for an assistant. You, reader, put this matter to a test: You are sitting now in your office- six clerks are within call. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Summon any one and make this request: “Please look in the encyclopedia and make a brief memorandum for me concerning the life of Correggio”.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Will the clerk quietly say, “Yes, sir,” and go do the task?[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]On your life, he will not. He will look at you out of a fishy eye and ask one or more of the following questions:[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Who was he?[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Which encyclopedia?[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Where is the encyclopedia?[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Was I hired for that?[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Don’t you mean Bismarck?[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]What’s the matter with Charlie doing it?[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Is he dead?[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Is there any hurry?[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Shan’t I bring you the book and let you look it up yourself?[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]What do you want to know for?[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]And I will lay you ten to one that after you have answered the questions, and explained how to find the information, and why you want it, the clerk will go off and get one of the other clerks to help him try to find Garcia- and then come back and tell you there is no such man. Of course I may lose my bet, but according to the Law of Average, I will not.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Now if you are wise you will not bother to explain to your “assistant” that Correggio is indexed under the C’s, not in the K’s, but you will smile sweetly and say, “Never mind,” and go look it up yourself.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]And this incapacity for independent action, this moral stupidity, this infirmity of the will, this unwillingness to cheerfully catch hold and lift, are the things that put pure Socialism so far into the future. If men will not act for themselves, what will they do when the benefit of their effort is for all? A first-mate with knotted club seems necessary; and the dread of getting “the bounce” Saturday night, holds many a worker to his place.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Advertise for a stenographer, and nine out of ten who apply, can neither spell nor punctuate- and do not think it necessary to.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Can such a one write a letter to Garcia?[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]“You see that bookkeeper,” said the foreman to me in a large factory.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]“Yes, what about him?”[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]“Well he’s a fine accountant, but if I’d send him up town on an errand, he might accomplish the errand all right, and on the other hand, might stop at four saloons on the way, and when he got to Main Street, would forget what he had been sent for.”[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Can such a man be entrusted to carry a message to Garcia?[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]We have recently been hearing much maudlin sympathy expressed for the “downtrodden denizen of the sweat-shop” and the “homeless wanderer searching for honest employment,” & with it all often go many hard words for the men in power.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Nothing is said about the employer who grows old before his time in a vain attempt to get frowsy ne’er-do-wells to do intelligent work; and his long patient striving with “help” that does nothing but loaf when his back is turned. In every store and factory there is a constant weeding-out process going on. The employer is constantly sending away “help” that have shown their incapacity to further the interests of the business, and others are being taken on. No matter how good times are, this sorting continues, only if times are hard and work is scarce, the sorting is done finer- but out and forever out, the incompetent and unworthy go.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]It is the survival of the fittest. Self-interest prompts every employer to keep the best- those who can carry a message to Garcia.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]I know one man of really brilliant parts who has not the ability to manage a business of his own, and yet who is absolutely worthless to any one else, because he carries with him constantly the insane suspicion that his employer is oppressing, or intending to oppress him. He cannot give orders; and he will not receive them. Should a message be given him to take to Garcia, his answer would probably be, “Take it yourself.”[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Tonight this man walks the streets looking for work, the wind whistling through his threadbare coat. No one who knows him dare employ him, for he is a regular fire-brand of discontent. He is impervious to reason, and the only thing that can impress him is the toe of a thick-soled No. 9 boot.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Of course I know that one so morally deformed is no less to be pitied than a physical cripple; but in our pitying, let us drop a tear, too, for the men who are striving to carry on a great enterprise, whose working hours are not limited by the whistle, and whose hair is fast turning white through the struggle to hold in line dowdy indifference, slip-shod imbecility, and the heartless ingratitude, which, but for their enterprise, would be both hungry & homeless.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Have I put the matter too strongly? Possibly I have; but when all the world has gone a-slumming I wish to speak a word of sympathy for the man who succeeds- the man who, against great odds has directed the efforts of others, and having succeeded, finds there’s nothing in it: nothing but bare board and clothes.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]I have carried a dinner pail & worked for day’s wages, and I have also been an employer of labor, and I know there is something to be said on both sides. There is no excellence, per se, in poverty; rags are no recommendation; & all employers are not rapacious and high-handed, any more than all poor men are virtuous.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]My heart goes out to the man who does his work when the “boss” is away, as well as when he is at home. And the man who, when given a letter for Garcia, quietly take the missive, without asking any idiotic questions, and with no lurking intention of chucking it into the nearest sewer, or of doing aught else but deliver it, never gets “laid off,” nor has to go on a strike for higher wages. Civilization is one long anxious search for just such individuals. Anything such a man asks shall be granted; his kind is so rare that no employer can afford to let him go. He is wanted in every city, town and village- in every office, shop, store and factory. The world cries out for such: he is needed, & needed badly- the man who can carry a message to Garcia.[/FONT]
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” -
President Theodore Roosevelt, 1910
De Oppresso Liber 01/20/2013
