HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY!!!

[TJ347]

That's all... Happy Memorial Day. Have fun, be safe, and all that.

[LG]

Happy Memorial Day, my American friends.

[chefmike]

That's all... Happy Memorial Day. Have fun, be safe, and all that.

Memorial Day is not a celebration, son...not that I expect a frivolous dipshit like yourself to realize that...Memorial Day is about honoring people who have served, not punks like yourself who treat it like a Gay Pride parade...

[chefmike]

Fuckin jackass punk...

http://www.hungangels.com/board/view...er=asc&start=0

[LG]

That's all... Happy Memorial Day. Have fun, be safe, and all that.

Memorial Day is not a celebration, son...not that I expect a frivolous dipshit like yourself to realize that...Memorial Day is about honoring people who have served, not punks like yourself who treat it like a Gay Pride parade...

I agree Chefmike, but please take it easy. Memorial Day (formerly called Decoration Day, I think) is a day to remember and honor those who died serving their country. But isn't it true that to most people in the US, especially those who have never served, Memorial Day is just another holiday, like any other? It shouldn't be, but it is. Isn't the Indy 500 held on Memorial Day?

In other parts of the world, they have Remembrance Day. Then there's VE Day, VJ Day and a whole host of other holidays that have sadly lost their meaning, in the same way that Thanksgiving has and even Christmas has.

So on this Memorial Day, all of us, Americans and Europeans alike, should maybe try a little bit harder to honour those who have died and, even more importantly, try to act to end the dying.

For some, it will just be another holiday, with BBQs or cookouts, beer and all that. I suppose there's nothing wrong with unwinding a little, as long as we don't forget the true meaning of this day for good.

Just my thoughts.

[tsafficianado]

chef, it seems that anyone who doesn't adhere strictly to your precise diatribe (or is that Learsy's diatribe) is one or more of the following:
cretin
frivolous dipshit
chickenhawk
irrelevant pinhead
chickenshit
or chickenshit punk
did i leave any out?

you are pretty bold in calling someone a chickenshit punk when cloaked in the anonymity of a message board. are you similarly cordial in person?

[arc angel]

you are trippin !!! all of you..... its a day for all who fight for us, and those who gave everything. it is a day for them. forget not those who fight for you and me...

[TJ347]

I said "Happy Memorial Day", and that's what I meant. I am happy to observe Memorial Day, and would hope that other Americans are as well. Happy, that is, in the sense that they are proud to remember the courage of those who have given their lives in service to America and to the cause of freedom, and if they are proud of that sacrifice, then they will also take joy in the fact that these sacrifices were made for their benefit. That said, Semper Fi. You aren't the only one who has served Chefmike, and while you sure as hell can't teach me anything about Memorial Day, you can clearly teach me alot about opening my mouth and inserting my foot. I responded to you to date with civility, and while you claim to have been a soldier, you were unable to do the same, showing me that either you were never a soldier, or were never much of one. It doesn't matter which is the case, I am now done trying to converse with you. Enjoy your existence.

[SkyTwo]

Memorial Day hits me like few others. I haven't served, but there are veterans among my family and friends, and there's no committment greater than saying "I believe so strongly in this that I'm ready to give my life for it." Especially when you're expressing that belief by taking a gun in hand in playing a part in someone else's plans.

I'm not religious, but I always take a few minutes on Memorial Day to just take in the enormity of the idea that millions of Americans-- and countless people around the world-- have made this sacrifice. Sometimes wisely, and in the name of the betterment of the human race. And in millions of other cases, men and women were misled into serving unjust causes. Or forced.

When you think about the billions who've been killed in war-- how many in the 20th century alone? 60 million? 100 million? I'm always a bit ashamed that it's a day of barbecues and parties instead of a day of meditation in memory of two things: the magnificence of the human race in our ability to lay down our lives in the service of something greater than ourselves, and the incomprehensible tragedy of the fact that we're still called upon to do so.

[SkyTwo]

". . . it is less the pain of the Trojans still to come
that weighs me down, not even of Hecuba herself
or King Priam, or the thought that my own brothers
in all their numbers, all their gallant courage,
may tumble into the dust, crushed by enemies--
That is nothing, nothing besideyour agony
when some brazen Argive hales you off in tears,
wrenching away your day of light and freedom!"

Iliad, Bk 6

I've long thought the scene where Hector takes his leave of Andromache sums up the things we've always thought about war-- yet never overcome. There's plenty of room for the sentiment to be co-opted and abused by demagogues, but there's something almost incomprehensibly beautiful and tragic about the idea that so many of us have felt the same way about it for so many thousands of years.