“It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.” – General George S. Patton
Quote of the Day: Memorial Day Edition
“It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.” – General George S. Patton
It is the loss of their spirit and the potential of such in this world that I mourn. May such a time come when such sacrifice is needed no more, but, til that day comes I will poor one and drink to that spirit!
Patton was buried with his men from the 3rd Army in Luxembourg. Many of them didn’t have living families etc. It was his wishes to stay with his men. He is the only General buried on foreign soil.
Not 100% sure, but i think brig. gen. Teddy Roosevelt Jr. is burried in Normandy.
He is. Died 36 days after the landing.
Yes, he was buried in Normandy following a heart attack. But as you pointed out Teddy Jr. was a Brigadier General and not a full General.
God bless all of them.
Sorry for those that have lost family and friends, sorry for our currently serving that have lost brothers and sisters in arms. I wish all TTAGers have a safe holiday. If packing today remind yourself that it was those that gave up everything to ensure the Bill of Rights meant something.
“Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”
John F. Kennedy January 20, 1961
2015… “unless it takes too long, costs too much, is just too hard, or we loose interest…”
Yes, and those were the Democrats talking like that back then. How far….
bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” January 20, 1961. Pre-Vietnam. I do not recall many people saying that by 1973.
Of course there’s this too:
JFK was one of eight U.S. presidents to have been lifetime members of the NRA.
http://www.nranews.com/home/document/jfk-lifetime-nra-member-second-amendment-defender
They were all politicians and would have joined NAMBLA if it would have gotten them votes.
National association of Marlin Brando look alikes?
Slowroll, don’t google it. Just keep it at that.
Pretty sure he was making a south park joke
-Barrack Hussein Obama- There, you forgot to add that.
I thank them and their family’s for allowing me the freedom to celebrate this great day with my own family. Godspeed and God bless them all!
He makes a good point.
thank you for the ultimate sacrifice so my family and I can sleep each night under a blanket
of freedom…
Patton was wrong. I think you can do both.
Fat Jack. Little Ski. Moonman. Jeff. Mac.
Same thing me and some of my brothers did this morning. We started it a few years ago, just saying the names of our dead out loud. Great tradition.
I prefer the old Hebrew proverb. Say not in grief “He is no more”, but live in thankfulness that he was.
Beautiful sentiment and philosophy.
I’ll take both, thank you.
Thank you for your ultimate sacrifice. May we stop these sacrifices for insane Asian adventures.
I will say on this day of remembrance that many countries have had many soldiers who died and suffered for a cause that they and their governments believed in. Some of the causes may have been valid and noble, many were not. One of my most memorable documentaries of war was Vietnam in HD which had a sign at the top of the hill stating “Hamburger Hill. Was it worth it?” I think the best we can do as a nation is to try and select leaders that will be thoughtful and ask “Is this war worth it?”, before we commit the next generation of young people to battle.
Iraq was overwhelmingly voted on by ALL sides. Democrats pushed Vietnam. The American sheep wanted a p##sy like Barry Soetoro-and now we are about to reap the whirlwind Tom…I’m just glad my first-born son escaped the middle east unscathed.
Those that died will not be forgotten. These heroes lived and died not for political votes, but to ensure the others on deployment with made it home to enjoy that freedom with their families. The heroes answered the call so that others would not have to and became more noble than us in the process.
Today I took out the flag the draped my fathers casket. Was the first time I jad done so, was the best sad feeling I have ever had! He is the greatest man I’ve met. I give thanks for all he and others did to protect this great country! !
So Patton was fulfilling the “lived” part of his quote when he personally led a cavalry charge with sabers drawn into an unarmed crowd of Bonus Army campers. Then when his former orderly from WW1 (who was decorated for saving Patton’s life) confronted him, Patton insulted the man and ordered him to be taken away.
Thank you TTAG for posting a quote from a narcissistic blowhard who had a more broken moral compass than the Germans he fought against. At least Guderian and Rommel disregarded some of Hitler’s more brutal orders. No doubt Patton would have followed them to the letter.
The Bonus Army demanded taxpayer money that was not theirs, in the Great Depression when nearly everyone was short of money. To pay the demands of the Bonus Army, Congress would have had to increase taxes on a populace already struggling. To give you a specific example, my grandparents had to really struggle and worry to pay the taxes on their farms. My paternal grandfather go out after dark and pace the road thinking about how he was going to pay the tax on his farm.
The tax on his farm was $17.00.
Actually the Bonus Army demanded payment that was theirs by law, albeit a few years earlier.
Perhaps the Chinese learned from Patton with their own armed charge into Tiananmen Square.
Well that is like saying Social Security is yours, but good luck trying to collect all of it in one lump payment at any given time or will it to anyone you want.
Well yes, the social security money is technically yours, the government simply put it in a lockbox that Congress uses to cook the books.
In any case, charging cavalry into a peaceful unarmed gathering is unforgivable.
SSgt Daniel Fannin. 27 April 2013, Afghanistan.
My dad drove a Dodge Powerwagon ambulance across Omaha beach and across Europe. He recalled that his captain said “This is the most important thing you will ever do in your life.” Dad was among the men who liberated a concentration camp and saw bodies stacked like cord wood. Dad’s no longer with us but I know that he was welcomed into heaven by an honor guard that included George Patton – and Stone wall Jackson, Dwight Eisenhower,Norman Schwartzkoff, and probably George Washington (USA army service number 1).
My brother served in the Big Red One in Vietnam. He came home with a bronze star, two purple hearts, PTSD and major Agent Orange health problems.
I did my Nam time on board the cruiser Newport News. I had a fight with prostate cancer three years ago but I’m still going and plan to be around for a long time.
To the sorry trolls who criticize everything that this country has stood for and the sacrifices that have made, I ask them to consider what the world would be like if the Nazis and Japanese had won. We Americans may not be perfect, but we are a lots better than anybody else.
I am proud of my service for this country. As I’ve said on this site I continue to serve the people of my county as a deputy sheriff. If anybody is offended or upset by what I’ve done or my family has done they can kiss my #ss on high noon on a Saturday in Wal Mart parking lot with a brass band to draw a crowd.
God bless America and her hero’s that have fought for her in every one of this great nations wars, past or present. For all our faults, and our achievements, we are by far still the greatest nation to ever grace this planet. We are still more free, and more powerful, because of the great men and women that serve the cause of liberty. Here’s to another 240 years of this great country.
As always, the more florid and grandiose the rhetoric becomes, the more detached it is from reality.
In Soviet Russia people were given full-time jobs to write this sort of drivel.
So the service of my father, my brother, and myself is “drivel”? Why are my opinions and views of what this country stands for less important and less valid than yours? I’m truly sorry that you are so filled with hate and cynicism and you are so full of yourself that you believe the rest of us are wrong. I’ll be waiting for you at Wally world this Saturday.
Drivel is harmless, your “service” is worse than drivel because you spilled blood for politicians.
I’m curious what your full time job is. I was an Infantry 0311 USMC grunt and later a platoon sergeant with Golf 2/24. After that, a crew chief at Dumbar Armored. I’m now a full time police officer. You sound like you live in your mom’s basement.
That’s easy, I was forced by government threats to help pay permanent welfare queens like you. Soldier to cop, never a single day spent contributing to the private economy (i.e. the non-murder-or-theft-based economy). Pathetic.
Wow Riddance, you sound like a real badass. I bet you couldn’t impress a mall security guard. This “welfare queen” worked 13 hours today while you were eating your mommies leftover brownies and posting all your “epic” judgements on those who actually take risks in life. Have fun changing your screen name to something else while the adults finish their conversations.
Why would anyone want to impress a mall security guard? Also, why are you denigrating Paul Blart? At least he has the decency not to steal money from motorists or toss people in a government cage for smoking a plant.
By the way the value of work is not a function of the hours worked. I figure Marxist economics has been proven to be a dead end for some time, but here it is again…
Thanks to the people I served with. And thanks to the people who came before me to make a path for me and others to follow to personal victory.
“The worst part about Memorial Day is that not a single second is spent remembering the real (unwilling) victims of these boneheaded US government wars…”
We have the other 364 days a year for that. Would that we did a better job of it. I hope shortly to see effective issues advocacy, trenchant analysis, investigation and perhaps even a campaign for office under the banner “Good Riddance.”
Which diminishes the choice to serve not at all – the best, least bad option, perhaps, but the honor is in the choosing, (vs. demanding that there be better options, for example.) Letting ones self off the hook because those other guys aren’t perfect, and there are no clean choices is way too convenient.
It is up to the rest of us to do what we can to make the government’s choices better, and ultimately worthy of what they cost.
Meanwhile, we can spare a day out of 365 to remember the people who stepped up. I know of no more powerful way to motivate thinking better about what we allow to be done in our name.
Sadly, this being on the public interwebz I really ought to respond for the sake of later conversations with folks other than “Good Riddance.”
I made a mistake: Don’t wrestle with pigs. You get dirty and the pig likes it.
So, here’s the extended disclaimer in which I try to remove some of the poo…
As much as I may agree in part with some of the issues raised by Good Riddance, this isn’t the way to go about it if the idea is changing minds or the state of the world. Once you have their attention, and a seat at the table (even a kiddie booster chair), tantrums don’t advance anything. Offer solutions in the situation at hand. At some point “consciousness raising” becomes extortion. People know when that’s the case, and don’t like it. We’ve been there from the get go with this “discussion.”
Lucy Van Pelt (Peanuts cartoon – ed) once famously issued an ultimatum. Having observed the state of the world to be not to her liking, she proclaimed that it had all better be fixed by the time she got out of third grade, or she was *not* going to put up with it. That’s still funny.
Denis Leary has an old bit about stoners making plans. “First I’m gonna get a bunch of money. Then…” That’s still funny too.
Neither Lucy nor Leary’s stoner were solving much – that’s the point.
My analogy of Vegan at a BBQ was on point – snotty self-righteous disruption rarely convinces anybody of anything. Also, both Vegans and Cross-Fitters think they are every bit as right as Good Riddance thinks he is. And the people they seek to convince – so they say – also think they are right, eating meat for example. So, throwing a tantrum at the other guy’s club meeting is a great way to convince them … Oh, wait. The other thing. It’s a great way to convince them you are a jerk, who only looks down on them, and is willing to extract summary penalties to get your way, under the guise of “raising issues” or similar. It’s extortion., like spewing anti-military invective in a Memorial Day thread, for example.
Maybe convincing anybody isn’t the point. Sadly, I mostly agree with the motivating observations Good Riddance has made, as real things, part of the mix in deciding what to do as a nation, and as citizens. Any power one can use, including military, will also be misused, eventually by someone. This is kind of like the argument for the existence of guns, civilian gun ownership, driving cars and more. Do we put down this ability to do any of the goods this thing allows, to avoid the potential bads? No guns, and nobody gets shot with an accidental (“negligent” is better) discharge. Also, no desperate mothers in upstairs closets get to fend off marauding home invaders who have already not opted to leave with the stuff they took. So, choose.
Having a military is a dangerous choice. Paraphrasing Churchill, the worst choice in the world … except for all the others. If Riddance wants to propose an alternative that will work better, propose it, and demonstrate that it will work. Kind of like the proposal that we get rid of all the guns … then there’s no more violence, ever. Oh, wait, all the violence that happened to use a gun disappears (so no threats, no violence by other means, and no violence going forward because no more deterrent.) That’s crazy.
It’s like Mr. Riddance has borrowed the entire nonsense playbook from the anti-gun folks.
“Riddance” has said some very harsh things about US military members … on the occasion of Memorial Day. His counter-proposals are vague at best. So, the US acts a lot more like Switzerland (Which means what, exactly?) and … what happens? All of it. For real. Specifically, what happens? I do not agree with his conclusions, which are sparse. I think his presentation and choice of venue are appalling.
One suspects the frisson from daemonization of some “other” is the point, along with inviting others to the same “position” promising payoff of that same frisson. It was an old, old story before PA gun owners were identified as “bitterly clinging.” This is the appeal of shoving tiny nerds into school lockers to feel larger ones’ self. In the present non-conversation, there is way more energy in the name calling than thinking about how things might work out, so…
I am sorry for adding to the noise.
“The Swiss model is quite clear, and one that this nation used for many decades before the 20th century…”
Excellent.
You might elaborate a bit on what constitutes “The Swiss model.” A comparison / contrast with other models might be useful, for example: imperial mercantilism, a “Pax whoever-us”, and a global, class-based revolution resulting a new world order (or something), to start. You could toss in hegemonic revoutionary theocracy, reaction of former colonies of contracting empires, and the formalism of the Westphalian (sp?) model of nation-states followed by the goals and results of the League of Nations, with the UN as League of Nations II.
Then address how the world at large, and the US might fare with the US undertaking The Swiss model, while others undertake any of these others. For extra credit, consider The Swiss model undertaken by a nation in the midst of implacable hostile surroundings – would this work for a situation like Israel’s, too? (It doesn’t matter whether Israel is Bad and Wrong, a Shining Example of Goodness and Light or anything else. They are surrounded by implacable enemies consistently taking every opportunity to wipe them out, interrupted by occasional cooperations of convenience when Realpolitik dictates. So, everybody around you hates you to death, for whatever reasons. Lay down and die? Become a citadel, whatever that takes? Adopt The Swiss model, and hope that is sufficient? (Adopt The Swiss model, and know that will be sufficient – make the case.))
Next describe how the Swiss Model will & can work in the 21st century, as opposed to “many decades up to the 20th century.”
These may convince someone. Leaving a flaming bag of scorn-poo on their memorial day porch will only dirty up your position.
Is the US surrounded by “enemies that hate us”?
Why should the original foreign policy of this nation require any more defense other than the fact that the events used by the Progressives to justify moving this country into an aggressive global empire have already been proven to be nothing more than lies designed to enrich the politically connected?
You question the model of neutrality and commerce. The better question to ask is, why did we leave it?
Smedley Butler already explained the state of affairs. I’m sure the militarists here will just dismiss him as another “anti-military troll”. 🙂