Saturday, July 31, 2021

TheList 5794

The List 5794     TGB

 

Good Saturday Afternoon July 31

I hope that you all have a great weekend.

 

Regards

Skip

 

This Day in Navy and Marine Corps History:

 

July 31

 

Today in Naval History

 

July 31

 

1865 The East India Squadron, later known as Asiatic Squadron, is established under Commodore Henry H. Bell, USN, to operate from Sunda Strait to Japan. The squadron consists of USS Hartford, USS Wachusett, USS Wyoming and USS Relief.

 

1874 USS Intrepid is commissioned, the first U.S. warship equipped with torpedoes.

 

1941 The Japanese government reports that the bombing of USS Tutuila (PR 4), which happens the previous day during the bombing raid on Chungking, China, is just an accident, pure and simple. USS Tutuilas motor boats were badly damaged and motor sampan is cut loose when one bomb falls eight yards astern of the vessel. There were no causalities.

 

1943 PBM (VP 74) and Brazilian A-28 and Catalina sink German submarine U-199 off Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Small seaplane tender USS Barnegat (AVP 10) rescues the survivors.

 

1951 Dan A. Kimball takes office as the 50th Secretary of the Navy, serving until January 1953. His tenure is marked by the continuation of the Korean War, expansion of the Nation's defense, and technological progress in aviation, engineering and other defense-related fields.

1953 His tenure is marked by the continuation of the Korean War, expansion of the Nation's defense, and technological progress in aviation, engineering and other defense-related fields.

 

1959 President Dwight D. Eisenhower responds to Secretary of the Navy William B. Franke's recommendation to name three SSBNs (nuclear-powered fleet ballistic missile submarines) with these names: USS Sam Houston, USS Thomas A. Edison, and USS John Marshall. The proposed name from Secretary Franke, USS Nathan Hale, is used two years later.

 

2010 USS Missouri (SSN 780) is commissioned at Groton, Conn., her homeport. The seventh Virginia-class attack submarine is the fourth Navy vessel to honor the state of Missouri.

 

Today in History July 31

 

904

Arabs capture Thessalonica.

1703

English novelist Daniel Defoe is made to stand in the pillory as punishment for offending the government and church with his satire The Shortest Way With Dissenters.

1760

Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick, drives the French army back to the Rhine River.

1790

The U.S. Patent Office opens.

1882

Belle and Sam Starr are charged with horse stealing in the Indian territory.

1875

Former president Andrew Johnson dies at the age of 66.

1891

Great Britain declares territories in Southern Africa up to the Congo to be within its sphere of influence.

1904

The Trans-Siberian railroad connecting the Ural mountains with Russia's Pacific coast, is completed.

1917

The third Battle of Ypres commences as the British attack the German lines.

1932

Adolf Hitler's Nationalist Socialist German Workers' Party (Nazis) doubles its strength in legislative elections.

1944

The Soviet army takes Kovno, the capital of Lithuania.

1962

Federation of Malaysia formally proposed.

1971

Apollo 15 astronauts take a drive on the moon in their land rover.

1987

An F4 tornado in Edmonton, Alberta kills 27 and causes $330 million in damages; the day is remembered as "Black Friday."

1988

Bridge collapse at Sultan Abdul Halim ferry terminal in Butterworth, Malaysia, kills 32 and injures more than 1,600.

1990

Bosnia-Herzegovina declares independence from Yugoslavia.

1991

The US and the USSR sign a long-range nuclear weapons reduction pact.

1999

NASA purposely crashes its Discovery Program's Lunar Prospector into the moon, ending the agency's mission to detect frozen water on Earth's moon.

2006

Fidel Castro temporarily hands over power to his brother Raul Castro.

2007

The British Army's longest continual operation, Operation Banner (1969-2007), ends as British troops withdraw from Northern Ireland.

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thanks to Doctor Rich 

 

The First Jet Pilots

https://www.airspacemag.com/history-of-flight/jump-to-jets-180969506/

 

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ROLLING THUNDER REMEMBERED Thanks to the Bear

LOOKING BACK 55-YEARS to the Vietnam Air War— … For The List for Saturday, 31 July 2021… Bear🇺🇸⚓️🐻

 

OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER (1965-1968)…

From the archives of rollingthunderremembered.com post for 31 July 1966… "The Soldier's Grave" by Pearl Rivers…

 

https://www.rollingthunderremembered.com/rolling-thunder-remembered-31-july-1966-the-soldiers-grave/

 

This following work accounts for every fixed wing loss of the Vietnam War and you can use it to read more about the losses in The Bear's Daily account. Even better it allows you to add your updated information to the work to update for history…skip

 

Vietnam Air Losses

Access Chris Hobson and Dave Lovelady's work at:  https://www.VietnamAirLosses.com.

 

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Where are those kind of men now

 

Thanks to Dale

The Revolt of the Admirals

In the United States, it was assumed that nuclear weapons would be widely employed in future conflicts, rendering conventional land armies and fleets at sea irrelevant.

(This article appeared earlier in 2019.)

In the wake of the mushroom clouds that blossomed over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it swiftly dawned on political and military leaders across the globe that warfare between superpowers would never again be the same. But what exactly were the implications of nuclear weapons when it came to planning military force structure?

In the United States, it was assumed that nuclear weapons would be widely employed in future conflicts, rendering conventional land armies and fleets at sea irrelevant. The newly formed Air Force particularly argued that carrier task forces and armored divisions were practically obsolete when (ostensibly) just a few air-dropped nuclear bombs could annihilate them in one fell swoop.

The Air Force touted it soon-to-be operational fleet of ten-thousand-mile-range B-36 Peacemaker nuclear bombers as the only vital war-winning weapon of the nuclear age. This logic resonated conveniently with the postwar political program mandating sharp cuts to U.S. defense spending and force structure—which the Air Force naturally argued should fall upon the Army and Navy.

The Army responded by devising "Pentomic Divisions" organized for nuclear battlefields, with weapons ranging from nuclear-armed howitzers and rocket artillery to bazooka-like Davy Crockett recoilless guns. The Navy, meanwhile, sought to find a way to integrate nuclear bombs into its carrier air wings. However, early nuclear bombs were simply too heavy for World War II-era carrier-based aircraft.

In 1945, the Navy began commissioning three larger forty-five-thousand-ton Midway-class carriers which incorporated armored flight decks for added survivability. The decks were swiftly modified to angular, effectively lengthened configuration for jet operations. Neptune P2V-C3 maritime patrol planes converted into nuclear bombers could take off from Midway-class carriers using rocket-pods but would have no way landing on the carrier deck.

Therefore, the Navy decided it needed huge supercarriers from which it could operate its own fifty-ton strategic bombers. These would displace over 40 percent more than the Midway at sixty-eight thousand tons, and measure 12 percent longer at 330-meters. In July 1948, Defense Secretary James Forrestal approved plans for five such carriers, the first named USS United States with hull number CVA-58.

The naval heavy bombers (which didn't exist yet) were expected to have such wide wings that naval architects decided that CVA-58 would have a completely flush deck without the standard "island" superstructure carrying a radar and flight control tower. Instead, the carrier would feature side-mounted telescoping smokestacks that could be raised should smoke impeded flight operations, and a similarly retractable wheelhouse that could be extended to observe navigation and flight operations.

The ship's air wings would include twelve to eighteen heavy bombers that would mostly remain parked on the flight deck, exposed to the elements. Four side-mounted elevators would ferry forty to fifty-four jet fighters between the hangar and flight deck to escort the bombers. Eight nuclear bombs per heavy bomber would also be stowed in the hangar. The combined ship's company and airwing would total 5,500 personnel.

The carrier's oddly-shaped deck included four steam catapults—two for use by bombers, and two axial "waist" catapults.

Because the ship would be effectively blind without an elevated radar and control tower, a separate cruiser was intended to serve as the carrier's "eyes." Nonetheless, CVA-58 still incorporated eight 5-inch guns for air defense, and dozens of rapid-fire short-range cannons.

The "Revolt of the Admirals"

Though theoretically capable of contributing to conventional strike and sea control missions, the heavy bomber-equipped CVA-58 was clearly an attempt by the Navy to duplicate the Air Force's strategic nuclear strike capabilities.

This put giant crosshairs on the program during an era of sharp defense cuts. After all, deploying strategic bombers at sea was many times more expensive than basing them on land.

Following his reelection in November 1948, President Harry Truman replaced Forrestal—a naval aviator in World War I, and former secretary of the Navy—with Louis Johnson, who had fewer qualms about enforcing defense spending cuts.

In April 1949, just five days after CVA-58's fifteen-ton keel was laid down in Newport News, Virginia, Johnson canceled the mega-carrier. He also began advocating dissolution of the Marine Corps, starting by transferring its aviation assets to the Air Force.

This upset the Navy bigwigs so much that Navy Secretary John Sullivan resigned, and numerous admirals began openly opposing the termination of a project they viewed as essential to validating their branch's existence in the nuclear age.

This "Revolt of the Admirals" developed into a crisis in civil-military relations, as the Navy's top brass defied the authority of their civilian commander-in-chief and resorted to covert methods in an attempt to influence public opinion. The Op-23 naval intelligence unit formed by Adm. Louis Denfeld secretly circulated a memo called the Worth Paper alleging that Johnson had corrupt motivations due to being a former director of Convair, manufacturer of B-36 bombers, which were also claimed to be deficient.

The bitter inter-service rivalry, and the utility of land-based bombers versus carriers, was publicly litigated in congressional hearings. The Army also piled on against the Navy, and public opinion turned against the sea-warfare branch as Op-23's activities were revealed.

As Gen. Douglas MacArthur would later discover, Truman had no qualms about squashing military leaders that questioned his authority. His new secretary of the Navy, Francis Matthews, torpedoed the career of several admirals that spoke against the CVA-58's termination despite an earlier promise that those testifying before Congress would be spared retaliation.

The irony of this tempest in a teacup, which resulted in the political martyrdom of many senior Navy leaders, was how misguided both sides swiftly proved to be.

 

In June 1950 the Korean War broke out, and the U.S. found itself desperately short of the necessary conventional land, air and sea forces. U.S. aircraft carriers and their onboard jet fighters soon bore the brunt of the initial fighting, and continued to play a major role until the end of the conflict.

And the Air Force's vaunted B-36s? They never dropped a single bomb in anger—fortunately, as they were only intended for use in apocalyptic nuclear conflicts.

It turned out that plenty of wars were liable to be fought without resorting to weapons of mass destruction.

However, the Navy also had cause to count itself fortunate that the CVA-58 had been canceled.

 

That's because in just a few years the size of tactical nuclear weapons rapidly decreased, while high-thrust jet engines enabled hauling of heavier and heavier loads. By 1950, nuclear-capable AJ-1 Savage hybrid jet/turboprop bombers were operational on Midway-class carriers, starting with the USS Franklin Roosevelt.

 

These were soon followed by nuclear-capable capable A-3 Sky Warrior and A-5 Vigilante bombers, A-6 and A-7 attack planes, and even multirole fighters like the F-4 Phantom II. Carriers with these aircraft were far more flexible than a CVA-58 full of B-36 wannabees ever could have been. Arguably, by the 1960s the Navy's ballistic missile submarines would amount to scarier strategic nuclear weapons than any aircraft-based delivery system.The schematics for CVA-58 nonetheless informed the Navy's first supercarriers, named rather appropriately the Forrestal-class, laid down during the Korean War. But the heavy-bomber carrying United States remains notable as the supercarrier the Navy absolutely thought it needed—but which with literally just a couple years more hindsight it discovered it truly could do without.

Runt

 

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AMERICAN AEROSPACE EVENTS for July 31, 2020 FIRSTS, LASTS, AND SIGNIFICANT ACCOMPLISHMENTS. THANKS TO HAROLD "PHIL" MYERS CHIEF HISTORIAN AIR FORCE INTELLIGENCE, SURVEILLANCE, AND RECONNAISSANCE AGENCY

 

31 July

 

1912: Navy pilot Lt Theodore G. Ellyson launched the first airplane from a catapult, designed and built by Capt W. Irving Chambers (USN). The plane lifted from its platform on the seawall at Annapolis, but immediately dove into the water. (24)

 

1941: The Lockheed PV-1 Ventura first flew.

 

1952: PROJECT HOP-A-LONG. Two MATS Sikorsky H-19 helicopters completed the first trans-atlantic helicopter flight. They touched down five times en route between Westover Field and Prestwick, Scotland. This proved the feasibility of ferrying helicopters overseas. (2) (9)

 

1957: The DEW Line, a distant early warning radar defense installation extending across the Canadian Arctic, reported as fully operational. (11) (24)

1958: Construction of a prototype hardened Titan I launch control facility with a silo-lift launcher and blockhouse began at Cooke AFB. (6)

 

1964: Alian Parker set a new, world distance-in-a-straight-line record for gliders by flying 647.17 miles from Odessa to Kimball, Neb.

 

1968: Two UH-1F helicopters from USAF Southern Command helped the Costa Rican government evacuate people endangered by the Mount Arenal volcano. (16) (26) COMBAT BRONCO. The first new, twin-turboprop OV-10A Bronco aircraft arrived at Bien Hoa AB to fly armed forward air controller missions with the 504th Tactical Air Support Group. (17)

 

1969: The Mariner space probes used infrared spectrophotometer and detectors to determine the surface temperature and atmospheric composition of Mars. (16) 1970: The first class of foreign students to graduate under the President's Vietnamization Program completed undergraduate pilot training at Keesler AFB. (16) (26)

 

1973: First Boeing T-43A aircraft delivered to Mather AFB. (12)

 

1984: The 390 SMW at Davis-Monthan AFB became the first Titan II wing to inactivate under the missile phaseout program. (1) (26)

 

1987: Grumman's plant in Melbourne, Fla., received the first E-8A (a modified Boeing 707-300) aircraft for upgrading to the JSTARS configuration.

 

1989: Through 7 August, MAC aircraft moved nearly 1,000 fire fighters, 850 tons of equipment, and medical supplies to southwestern Idaho, where a raging fire spread through thousands of acres of forest. The aircraft also sprayed 3,350 tons of fire retardant on the fire from high altitudes. (16) (26)

 

1995: The 351st Missile Wing, the last Minuteman II unit, inactivated at Whiteman AFB, Mo. (16)

 

1999: Two improved T-38C fighter training aircraft transferred from Edwards AFB to Columbus AFB, Miss., for testing. At Edwards, the T-38s completed a development test and evaluation of the aircraft's Avionics Upgrade Program, while the move to Columbus took the planes into initial operational testing and evaluation for Specialized Undergraduate Pilot Training course and Introduction to Fighter Fundamentals. (AFNEWS Article 991727, 18 Sep 99)

 

2001: A B-2 Spirit successfully launched its first Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) at China Lake. Launched at 14,000 feet, the stealthy JASSM conducted a suite of preprogrammed maneuvers, including a full 360-degree segmented roll, and then tracked to its target. (3)

2006: AFFTC conducted a live fly exercise with pilots using a Network Centric Warfare environment for the first time. Pilots in multiple types of aircraft connected to data links of several real and simulated players over a US-wide distributed network. (3)

 

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This Day in U.S. Military History

July 31

 

1944 – On Tinian, American forces begin attacks on the last center of organized Japanese resistance, in the south of the island.

 

1964 – Ranger 7, an unmanned U.S. lunar probe, takes the first close-up images of the moon–4,308 in total–before it impacts with the lunar surface northwest of the Sea of the Clouds. The images were 1,000 times as clear as anything ever seen through earth-bound telescopes. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) had attempted a similar mission earlier in the year–Ranger 6–but the probe's cameras had failed as it descended to the lunar surface. Ranger 7, launched from Earth on July 28, successfully activated its cameras 17 minutes, or 1,300 miles, before impact and began beaming the images back to NASA's receiving station in California. The pictures showed that the lunar surface was not excessively dusty or otherwise treacherous to a potential spacecraft landing, thus lending encouragement to the NASA plan to send astronauts to the moon. In July 1969, two Americans walked on the moon in the first Apollo Program lunar landing mission.

 

1964 – All-nuclear task force with USS Long Beach, USS Enterprise, and USS Bainbridge leaves Norfolk, VA to begin voyage, Operation Sea Orbit, to circle the globe without refueling. They returned on 3 October.

 

1971 – Apollo 15 astronauts (Dave Scott) took a drive on the moon in their land rover.

1972 – Hanoi challenges the Nixon administration on the dike controversy, claiming that since April there had been 173 raids against the dikes in North Vietnam with direct hits in 149 locations. On July 28, in response to claims by the Soviet Union that the United States had conducted an intentional two-month bombing campaign designed to destroy the dikes and dams of the Tonkin Delta in North Vietnam, a CIA report was made public by the Nixon administration. It stated that U.S. bombing at 12 locations had caused accidental minor damage to North Vietnam's dikes, but the damage was unintentional and the dikes were not the intended targets of the bombings. The nearly 2,000 miles of dikes on the Tonkin plain, and more than 2,000 miles of dikes along the sea, made civilized life possible in the Red River Delta. Had the dikes been intentionally targeted, their destruction would have destroyed centuries of patient work and caused the drowning or starvation of hundreds of thousands of peasants. Bombing the dikes had been advocated by some U.S. strategists since the beginning of U.S. involvement in the war, but had been rejected outright by U.S. presidents sitting during the war as an act of terrorism.

 

.Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day

 

KISTERS, GERRY H.
Rank and organization: Second Lieutenant (then Sergeant), U.S. Army, 2d Armored Division. Place and date: Near Gagliano, Sicily, 31 July 1943. Entered service at: Bloomington, Ind. Birth: Salt Lake City, Utah. G.O. No.: 13, 18 February 1944. Citation: On 31 July 1943, near Gagliano, Sicily, a detachment of 1 officer and 9 enlisted men, including Sgt. Kisters, advancing ahead of the leading elements of U.S. troops to fill a large crater in the only available vehicle route through Gagliano, was taken under fire by 2 enemy machineguns. Sgt. Kisters and the officer, unaided and in the face of intense small arms fire, advanced on the nearest machinegun emplacement and succeeded in capturing the gun and its crew of 4. Although the greater part of the remaining small arms fire was now directed on the captured machinegun position, Sgt. Kisters voluntarily advanced alone toward the second gun emplacement. While creeping forward, he was struck 5 times by enemy bullets, receiving wounds in both legs and his right arm. Despite the wounds, he continued to advance on the enemy, and captured the second machinegun after killing 3 of its crew and forcing the fourth member to flee. The courage of this soldier and his unhesitating wil

 

RAMAGE, LAWSON PATERSON
Rank and organization: Commander, U.S. Navy, U.S.S. Parche. Place and date: Pacific, 31 July 1944. Entered service at: Vermont. Born: 19 January 1920, Monroe Bridge, Mass. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty as commanding officer of the U.S.S. Parche in a predawn attack on a Japanese convoy, 31 July 1944. Boldly penetrating the screen of a heavily escorted convoy, Comdr. Ramage launched a perilous surface attack by delivering a crippling stern shot into a freighter and quickly following up with a series of bow and stern torpedoes to sink the leading tanker and damage the second one. Exposed by the light of bursting flares and bravely defiant of terrific shellfire passing close overhead, he struck again, sinking a transport by two forward reloads. In the mounting fury of fire from the damaged and sinking tanker, he calmly ordered his men below, remaining on the bridge to fight it out with an enemy now disorganized and confused. Swift to act as a fast transport closed in to ram, Comdr. Ramage daringly swung the stern of the speeding Parche as she crossed the bow of the onrushing ship, clearing by less than 50 feet but placing his submarine in a deadly crossfire from escorts on all sides and with the transport dead ahead. Undaunted, he sent 3 smashing "down the throat" bow shots to stop the target, then scored a killing hit as a climax to 46 minutes of violent action with the Parche and her valiant fighting company retiring victorious and unscathed.

 

*YOUNG, RODGER W.
Rank and organization: Private, U.S. Army, 148th Infantry, 37th Infantry Division. Place and date: On New Georgia, Solomon Islands, 31 July 1943. Entered service at: Clyde, Ohio. Birth: Tiffin, Ohio. G.O. No.: 3, 6 January 1944. Citation: On 31 July 1943, the infantry company of which Pvt. Young was a member, was ordered to make a limited withdrawal from the battle line in order to adjust the battalion's position for the night. At this time, Pvt. Young's platoon was engaged with the enemy in a dense jungle where observation was very limited. The platoon suddenly was pinned down by intense fire from a Japanese machinegun concealed on higher ground only 75 yards away. The initial burst wounded Pvt. Young. As the platoon started to obey the order to withdraw, Pvt. Young called out that he could see the enemy emplacement, whereupon he started creeping toward it. Another burst from the machinegun wounded him the second time. Despite the wounds, he continued his heroic advance, attracting enemy fire and answering with rifle fire. When he was close enough to his objective, he began throwing handgrenades, and while doing so was hit again and killed. Pvt. Young's bold action in closing with this Japanese pillbox and thus diverting its fire, permitted his platoon to disengage itself, without loss, and was responsible for several enemy casualties.

 

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Thanks to Mud……I wonder if that is what happened to my order

 

The Swarm Is Coming

 

    I wonder how long the bleeding hearts in this country are going to put up with this crap.  Watch this of how easy it is for the bros to loot an Amazon delivery truck in Los Angeles.

- Mud

 

https://nationalvanguard.org/2020/07/the-swarm-is-coming/

 

 

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Thanks to Carl

 

North Korean Defector Shares Her Story

 

https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2021/07/31/dictatorship-totalitarianism-socialism.aspx?ui=de7ed42c3f747a23b26fda9ec9138c712c2534b267fbe012d20a01056a6c76c0&sd=20110602&cid_source=prnl&cid_medium=email&cid_content=art1ReadMore&cid=20210731_HL2&mid=DM951052&rid=1222474357

North Korean Defector Shares Her Story

by Dr. Joseph Mercola   July 31, 2021

 

Is America Becoming North Korea? North Korean defector explains about 'WOKE' culture in America - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Dt5Ua8zW_Q

 

STORY AT-A-GLANCE 

Yeonmi Park, a North Korean defector and human rights activist, sees clear parallels between the United States and North Korea

Our educational system has been infiltrated by socialist and totalitarian ideologies, which is driving the loss of freedom we see in the U.S.

 

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Thanks to Dr. Rich…..If you do not know what TINS stands for then you are probably

 

Not interested.

A few "TINS" tales with Snort ...

 

 

Thanks to John T …

 

F/A-18 vs. F-14 ...

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDERZpazb3g&ab_channel=maxsin1972

 

 

 

And 9 G's at night over Baghdad ...

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQsLnmfeI1E 

 

 

 

 

F-14B vs. F-15 ACM in Snort's USN "Fini-Flight" …

(Nothing "mock" about it!!)

 

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aX265Ce4Ssg 

 

 

 

And, if you have time .. grab a beer and watch the whole deal …

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQZ0Q6anxbo

 

 

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Thanks to Gregg

 

Subject:  A POEM WORTH READING…🇺🇸🙏🏻

A POEM WORTH READING

 

He was getting old and paunchy

And his hair was falling fast,

And he sat around the Legion,

Telling stories of the past.,

 

Of a war that he once fought in

And the deeds that he had done,

In his exploits with his buddies;

They were heroes, every one.

 

And 'tho sometimes to his neighbors

His tales became a joke,

All his buddies listened quietly

For they knew where of he spoke.

 

But we'll hear his tales no longer,

For ol' Joe has passed away,

And the world's a little poorer

For a Veteran died today.

 

He won't be mourned by many,

Just his children and his wife.

For he lived an ordinary,

Very quiet sort of life.

 

He held a job and raised a family,

Going quietly on his way;

And the world won't note his passing,

'Tho a Veteran died today.

 

When politicians leave this earth,

Their bodies lie in state,

While thousands note their passing,

And proclaim that they were great.

 

Papers tell of their life stories

From the time that they were young,

But the passing of a Veteran

Goes unnoticed, and unsung.

 

Is the greatest contribution

To the welfare of our land,

Some jerk who breaks his promise

And cons his fellow man?

 

Or the ordinary fellow

Who in times of war and strife,

Goes off to serve his country

And offers up his life?

 

The politician's stipend

And the style in which he lives,

Are often disproportionate,

To the service that he gives.

 

While the ordinary Veteran,

Who offered up his all,

Is paid off with a medal

And perhaps a pension, small.

 

It is not the politicians

With their compromise and ploys,

Who won for us the freedom

That our country now enjoys.

 

Should you find yourself in danger,

With your enemies at hand,

Would you really want some cop-out,

With his ever-waffling stand?

 

Or would you want a Veteran

His home, his country, his kin,

Just a common Veteran,

Who would fight until the end.

 

He was just a common Veteran,

And his ranks are growing thin,

But his presence should remind us

We may need his likes again.

 

For when countries are in conflict,

We find the Veteran's part,

Is to clean up all the troubles

That the politicians start.

 

If we cannot do him honor

While he's here to hear the praise,

Then at least let's give him homage

At the ending of his days.

 

Perhaps just a simple headline

In the paper that might say:

 

"OUR COUNTRY IS IN MOURNING,

A VETERAN DIED TODAY."

Author 'Unknown'

 

PLEASE pass On The Patriotism! YOU can make a difference….🇺🇸

If you are proud of our Vets, then send this to them. You'll be glad

you did. Then send it to ALL your friends…..🇺🇸🙏🏻

 

 

 

 

 

 

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