Arlo and Janis by Jimmy Johnson for May 28, 2018

I don’t need them. My mom was part of the history and just told me as she laughed at how they butchered the German language in the movies.

Schultz still knows nothing. NOTH-ING!!

Another thoughtful Arlo and Janis strip on Memorial Day.

The most memorable sight I ever saw was the inscription on the grave markers of unidentified soldiers at the American Military Cemetery in Normandy, France. Then we went to Arlington and saw the same inscription on the Tomb of the Unknowns and the Changing of the Guard. Then the Korean War monument and the Vietnam War. Those that ‘forget’ just aren’t paying attention.

“Hitler’s Dark Side”; “Intensely Dramatic Voice-Over!!” Love it! Speaking as an historian, let me say that right there Jimmy has distilled the ridiculous essence of the “History” Channel.

“In Flanders fields, the poppies grow, amidst the crosses row on row

,as the grandson of a WW1 vet, the son of a WW2 vet, the nephew of Korean vets and with my own Cold War service, I make it a point to drum the message “freedom is not free” into the young folks around me.

John 15:13 Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

“My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

“To children ardent for some desperate glory,

“The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est

“Pro patria mori."

The drama obsessed society, the self-obsessed society, and the shallowness of today… sad. there is no understanding of sacrifice, much less appreciation for it.

Along with everything else today, I fervently hope that I neither hear nor read “Happy Memorial Day!”

It has been reduced to the first day of summer. I remember when every school child in our community marched in the Memorial Day Parade carrying an American flag.

I have been rereading The Guns of August and am still amazed at the ease and hubris and brutality of WW1. (I have no doubt it applies in slightly variable measure to all wars.)

I suppose that includes reading the comics

“But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Thomas Hardy:“Had he and I but met By some old ancient inn,We should have sat us down to wet Right many a nipperkin!

“But ranged as infantry,And staring face to face,

I shot at him as he at me, And killed him in his place.

“I shot him dead because —Because he was my foe,

Just so: my foe of course he was; That’s clear enough; although

“He thought he’d ’list, perhaps,Off-hand like — just as I —

Was out of work — had sold his traps — No other reason why.

“Yes; quaint and curious war is!You shoot a fellow down

You’d treat if met where any bar is, Or help to half-a-crown."

Bring back “Victory At Sea” to show the naval battles as they really were. Bring back “Patton” for an approximation of the land war.

I watched an interview with one of the remaining survivors from the USS Indianapolis (torpedoed). http://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2018/may/out-of-the-depths-uss-indianapolis-survivor-tells-his-miraculous-story The ones who lived through these incidents and lived to tell about it cannot forget. Their dark memories are part of who they are, but they do remember their fallen comrades.

These Song Lyrics say it all.

Well how do you do young Willy Mc BrideDo you mind if I sit here down by your gravesideAnd rest for a while in the warm summer sunI’ve been walking all day and I’m nearly done

I see by your gravestone your were only nineteenWhen you joined the great falling in nineteen fifteenWell I hope you died well and I hope you died cleanOr young Willy Mc Bride was it slow and obsceneDid they beat the drum slowly, did they sound the fifes lowlyDid they sound the death march as they lowered you downDid the band play the last post and Did the pipes play the flowers of the forest

Did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behindIn some faithfull heart is your memory enshrinedAnd though you died back in nineteen fifteenIn some faith full heart are you forever nineteenOr are you a stranger without even a nameEnshrined forever behind a glass frameIn an old photograph torn battered and stainedAnd fading to yellow in a brown leather frameWell the sun now it shines on the green fields of FranceThere’s a warm summer breeze it makes the red poppies dance

And look how the sun shines from under the cloudsThere’s no gas no barbed wire, there’s no gun firing nowBut here in this graveyard it’s still no mans landThe countless white crosses stand mute in the sandTo man’s blind indefference to his fellow manTo a whole generation that were butchered and dammedWell Will Mc Bride I can’t help wonder whyDo those that lie here know why did they dieAnd did they believe when they answered the callDid they really belive that this war would end war

Well the sorrow the suffering the glory the painThe killing the dying was all done in vainFor young Willy Mc Bride it all happened againAnd again, and again, and again, and again

What we all have to remember is that the USA did not fight alone in WW II., contrary what some film makers, politicians and authors would have you think. The USA entered the war after Pearl Harbor on Dec 08 1941, and would NOT have entered the war had Japan not bombed Pearl Harbor. The war actually started when Hitler invaded Poland on Sept 09 1939, two years prior to the USA entering the fray. Prior to that there were British, Scottish, Canadian, Australian, French, New Zealanders, India, Netherlands, Belgium Greece, and even the Soviet Union who were Axis allies until Hitler broke their agreement and invaded Russia. Many people died on both sides of the conflict, all believing that they were fighting for “right”. Joseph Goebbels brainwashed the German people. The German troops believed they were doing right. The Gestapo, and the SS were another matter entirely, totally evil. EVERY person who died believing they were defending their country, no matter their country of origin, deserve to be honored and remembered. Those who perpetrated the Holocaust and executed millions based on their faith, deserve to be remembered for their evil deeds, and NOT memorialized.

As you partake of whatever activity you may on this day; STOP and REMEMBER THE PRICE THAT WAS PAID THAT CAUSES THIS DAY TO EXIST.

Memorial Day was originally known as Decoration Day and was created to honor the Confederate and Union armies dead. It became a Federal Holiday in 1971.

the meaning of the words in the strip might well be that we are approaching the time when there will be no more WWII veterans alive – the humans that were there, fought, and remembered, will have passed

I sat and looked at what has been said here today. I didn’t read all, but I did read many of the comments. We reap what we sow, which in my mind is only right. I am glad to know that at least some few in this day and time still have room for others in their hearts. To those I say Bless you.

So far the mighty American Empire as escaped the reckoning for the atrocities and misdeeds it has done for 100 + years. It may never happen. Only when it falls and the question is what will replace it—Gilead or Friday? The “Handmaid’s Tale” or “Friday” where the USA is broken up into various and varied countries in the future. Or worse yet a wasteland of starving neo-savages.

Another by Eric Bogle:

Now when I was a young man I carried me pack, and I lived the free life of a rover

From the Murray’s green basin to the dusty outback, well, I waltzed my Matilda all over

Then in 1915, my country said son, it’s time you stopped rambling, there’s work to be done

So they gave me a tin hat, and they gave me a gun, and they marched me away to the war

And the band played Waltzing Matilda, as the ship pulled away from the Quay

And amidst all the cheers, the flag-waving and tears, we sailed off for Gallipoli

And how well I remember that terrible day, how our blood stained the sand and the water

And of how in that hell that they called Suvla Bay, we were butchered like lambs at the slaughter

Johnny Turk he was waiting, he’d primed himself well, he showered us with bullets

And he rained us with shell, and in five minutes flat, he’d blown us all straight to hell

Nearly blew us right back to Australia

But the band played Waltzing Matilda, when we stopped to bury our slain

We buried ours, and the Turks buried theirs, then we started all over again

And those that were left, well we tried to survive, in that mad world of blood, death and fire

And for ten weary weeks I kept myself alive, though around me the corpses piled higher

Then a big Turkish shell knocked me arse over head, and when I woke up in my hospital bed

And saw what it had done, well I wished I was dead: never knew there was worse things than dyin’

For I’ll go no more waltzing Matilda, all around the green bush far and free

To hang tent and pegs, a man needs both legs-no more waltzing Matilda for me

So they gathered the crippled, the wounded, the maimed, and they shipped us back home to Australia

The legless, the armless, the blind, the insane, those proud wounded heroes of Suvla

And as our ship pulled into Circular Quay, I looked at the place where me legs used to be

And thanked Christ there was nobody waiting for me, to grieve, to