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Praetorium Honoris

Friday, May 24, 2019

For Those Who Didn't Come Home...

American flags placed by soldiers participating in "Flags In" stand in front of headstones at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va., May 24, 2018.
DoD photo by Sebastian J. Sciotti Jr.
You may have noticed that there is a theme for this week.

This time of year seems to get harder and harder as I get older.

Maybe I'm just a maudlin old man, but I feel the loss each and every day, not just Memorial Day.

Ave atque vale...






32 comments:

  1. If you haven’t seen it yet, “They Shall Not Grow Old” finally showed up on Amazon for people (like me) who couldn’t see it in theaters.

    The parts that hurt the most, for me, maybe weren’t the things you’d expect.

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    1. I look forward to seeing that.

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    2. I bought my copy! That was the most amazing movie I have ever been too. For 90 minutes, the theater was dead silent, not even the sound of munching popcorn. The audience was rapt. You will enjoy that movie immensely, Chris!

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    3. On the watch list for tomorrow after Church. Seems like a very good movie to watch this week-end. More heroes to remember, adding to the dozen or so already gone from my life.

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    4. Dave - That is a good one for this weekend.

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  2. That is just simply beautiful.

    Thank you for being a "maudlin old man."

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  3. Awfully dusty in here Sarge.......

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    1. A tough one to put together, allergies were really acting up.

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  4. I wonder if the fabric of our life is like a blanket... a nice thick blanket. The folks we meet, our family, people we read about that we admire and respect all make up a thread or three of the blanket. Then, as time unrolls, they leave, and the blanket gets thinner. Those who leave in the course of protecting and serving their buddies, their families and their countries.... who died extending the hand of Liberty to the enslaved, are thick threads and are woven deeply into the fabric of those who are of like mind. Their loss, then, is a great loss. And we feel it.... more than most.

    To remember and miss those great ones, is to honor them. And boy, is it dusty in here...

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    1. STxAR. Wonderfully written, and a beautiful mental image.
      And the pollen is thick.

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    2. Thanks for the kind words gentlemen. I appreciate that.

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    3. I need to remember what you have written. Powerful words indeed.

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    4. I really liked that Star. Nice sentiment.

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  5. Even with all of the rain it’s difficult to keep the dust down.

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  6. Hey AFSarge;

    Part of the thing is that as we get older, we start to relate more to those that will never grow old, almost like "Survivor's guilt". The older I get I see I see my Army friends die off to various aliments or suicide and you wonder...."Why You..and not them?" I wonder that sometimes...what makes me better than my friends that I survive and they don't. Funny conundrum I suppose. All I can do is leave it to the big guy upstairs that he ain't done with me yet. Yeah I miss my friends and one day we will meet again in Fiddlers green or Valhalla or wherever we end up. Sorry for the deep discussion.....I am working through my first cup of coffee, LOL

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  7. I find it very enlightening and wonderful that President Trump and First Lady Melania snuck out to Arlington to help plant some flags, as they will be in Japan during the actual Memorial Day. And they made no big deal, to the media, about it.

    We finally have a president who gets 'it' for a large value of 'it.'



    As to Memorial Day, for those who never came back, physically or mentally, I, too, find myself thinking about them more and more. And Mr. Garabaldi, I think, gets the reason why.

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    Replies
    1. I saw that about the President and First Lady, they understand that is isn't about them.

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  8. As is becoming increasingly normal, I arrive here late and find that everyone else has written everything I have to write on your post. I can but echo what they wrote. And a wonderful job they did of it.

    Thanks for the post.
    Paul L. Quandt

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    Replies
    1. I feel that way often myself, probably because I don't always get to the blog until late evening.

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    2. Understood. Get here when you can, the door's always open.

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  9. Sarge, I've watched several of these videos this week and everyone of them gets me all dusty.

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Just be polite... that's all I ask. (For Buck)
Can't be nice, go somewhere else...

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