What's everyone doing for Memorial Day?

[patriotic]

Not much, Picnic, maybe some swimming.  Eating some burgers.  Buying a lear jet.  Smell my armpits. (just seeing if anyone is reading this.

I know I had tears in my eyes. We had not planned to go there.  A young man working in a T shirt shop told us about the cemetery, so after our visit to Pearl Harbor we switched buses and went. I am so glad we did.


well...  hopefully that last part won;t be the highlight of your day... ??? ...  but just in case... ... . i hope you realize that right guard goes under the left arm too.... ;D... ... .  j/k... ... .. ..  hope you;re having a wonderful weekend... . .... ..

It was good. It rained, but we went for a walk and grilled burgers, and I cleaned house from 4am till 9pm intermittently.  I really got a lot of stuff organized.  I hate messes.

How was yours Aleshanee?

Oh, yeah, and I shared a couple of adult beverages with my son.

it was good ... thanks for asking me about it... . coz there is something that has been bothering me about since yesterday... . and this gives me a chance to say something about it..... .. . although we had a very good day there....  many of the things the punchbowl national cemetery is known for on memorial day didn;t happen... .. . the traditional 21 gun salute by heavy howitzers was done with rifles this year... and there was no fighter jet fly over... .  the absence of both was blamed on budget cuts ... .. it didn;t matter that much to us coz it;s not the reason we go there anyway.. ..  my dad has a friend from high school who died in vietnam and is buried there.... but more recently a few marine corps and navy medics that he trained in the last few years..(guys younger than me)...  have also been buried there after having been killed in either iraq or afghanistan... ...

for many decades now soldiers who died in our countries service have been honored by 21 gun salutes and by the military jet flyovers performing the missing man maneuver....( the gun salutes are usually done with rifles...  punchowl has always been a rare exception where field artillery was used.... but switching to rifles this year was fine.... not many people minded that... ...) .but this year the jet fly over was completely missing...  and most people didn;t know it wasn;t going to happen until the ceremonies were completely over.... .

. if you have ever been to a memorial day service then you know how special that part of the service is..... it;s a very fitting tribute to those who have fallen .....  it;s always held at the very end and leaves even people who have never served in the military in tears..... .but apparently obama thinks it;s not worth a little extra aviation fuel to pay our fallen heros that final tribute... ... and... apparanetly he also doesn;t even think it;s worth explaning it those of us who have come to expect that every year... before hand....  ....


now the lantern lighting and floating ceremony was awesome... .. .  very beautiful... .  but we ended up getting there a little late coz i am having med reactions ... i had to have a out patient proceedure done thursday and the pain meds i am on coz of it started interacting with my usual stuff...  but i;m ok... . i just took an extra long nap and couldn;t get up in time to make it before the crowd got there... . but it was ok... .. we still saw it and was very special as it always is... ....    ...

here is a link to the event and it has a slide show too to show some of the pictures... .. . . when we first started going to that event it was unoffical and not many people took part.... . this year there were almost 50 thousand in attendance... ..

http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/22401023/15th-annual-lantern-floating-ceremony-to-be-held-monday-evening


but anyway.. . . sorry for the rant....... i just don;t think memorial day should be skimped on like that... .. . especially at a place like punchbowl....

When I was a kid, my father was in the county's Serviceman's burial Detail, and they marched in the Memorial Day Parade every year.  He was the organizer every year, and was the center man in the 7 man line for the 21 gun salute.  As a kid, when he told me what it meant, it became a very special time to me.  We lived in a remote area, so the flyover was rare, probably only 3 times in the 15 years I remember.  The most memorable was the year it rained the entire time.  I still choke up thinking of it. I was about 8 and because of the rain, about 1/3 of the parade participants dropped out.  But the Serviceman's Burial Detail marched.  And I watched my Dad march down our Main St in pouring rain, drenched to the bone.  I was shivering but my Mom whispered to me something like "hundreds of thousands of men died to give us our freedom, the least we can do is stand in the rain and honor them"  When my Dad got home that day, he told us for the first time of his time in Korea.  He spoke candidly and openly about the cold and rain and lack of medical care in the field, and I still cry when I remember the story of the men in his division who were killed and who he helped to bring their bodies home.  There were 2 men from my hometown, and he took us to their gravesites the next weekend,

in all the previous memorial days at punchbowl.... there would be 3 howitzers ..  really big ones.... with their gun crews... stationed at the far end of the main parkway at the entrance in front the main flag pole... ... and opposite this famous statue in the picture standing above the words president lincoln wrote to a mother who lost 5 sons during the civil war... where the ceremonies are being held ... and where most of the crowd is.... ....



then at the end of the ceremonies, after taps was played, those guns would be fired...  each one fired 7 times...  and they literally shook the ground....  then just as the smoke from the last gun cleared the jets would fly over at what seemed like tree top level, from the same direction directly over the parkway .. and the break away jet would separate from the other 3 and fly skyward right in front of the statue.....  and right above the ground where several rows of markers like this lie in the cemetery.....



something i would never forget even if i only went there and experienced it once... no one leaves there without tears in their eyes...  . even if they don;t know all the history very well.... ...

 

[Torrent v.3]

in all the previous memorial days at punchbowl.... there would be 3 howitzers ..  really big ones.... with their gun crews... stationed at the far end of the main parkway at the entrance in front the main flag pole... ... and opposite this famous statue in the picture standing above the words president lincoln wrote to a mother who lost 5 sons during the civil war... where the ceremonies are being held ... and where most of the crowd is.... ....



then at the end of the ceremonies, after taps was played, those guns would be fired...  each one fired 7 times...  and they literally shook the ground....  then just as the smoke from the last gun cleared the jets would fly over at what seemed like tree top level, from the same direction directly over the parkway .. and the break away jet would separate from the other 3 and fly skyward right in front of the statue.....  and right above the ground where several rows of markers like this lie in the cemetery.....



something i would never forget even if i only went there and experienced it once... no one leaves there without tears in their eyes...  . even if they don;t know all the history very well.... ...

This was taken this year. My Dad has been gone a long time.

 

[kaba]

Growing up as a child a neighboring city would have a parade, and we always went. I searched and searched for something like that hear and did not find it! I also look for a parade to go to on the 4th of July and never seem to find them. I do go to the Christmas parades though!! But I never seem to find any kind of ceremonies for Memorial day!