FReeper Canteen ~ MEMORIAL DAY 2024 ~ 27 May 2024

Serving the Best Troops and Veterans In The World !! | The Canteen Crew

[Kathy in Alaska]

~ The FReeper Canteen Presents ~

~ MEMORIAL DAY 2024 ~

TAPS

Canteen Mission Statement

Showing support and boosting the morale of
our military and our allies' military
and family members of the above.
Honoring those who have served before.




In honor of those who lost their lives while serving our country, we would like to share with you President Ronald Reagan's 1986 Memorial Day remarks at Arlington National Cemetery:

Today is the day we put aside to remember fallen heroes and to pray that no heroes will ever have to die for us again. It’s a day of thanks for the valor of others, a day to remember the splendor of America and those of her children who rest in this cemetery and others. It’s a day to be with the family and remember.

I was thinking this morning that across the country children and their parents will be going to the town parade and the young ones will sit on the sidewalks and wave their flags as the band goes by. Later, maybe, they’ll have a cookout or a day at the beach. And that’s good, because today is a day to be with the family and to remember.

Arlington, this place of so many memories, is a fitting place for some remembering. So many wonderful men and women rest here, men and women who led colorful, vivid, and passionate lives. There are the greats of the military: Bull Halsey and the Admirals Leahy, father and son; Black Jack Pershing; and the GI’s general, Omar Bradley. Great men all, military men. But there are others here known for other things.

Here in Arlington rests a sharecropper’s son who became a hero to a lonely people. Joe Louis came from nowhere, but he knew how to fight. And he galvanized a nation in the days after Pearl Harbor when he put on the uniform of his country and said, “I know we’ll win because we’re on God’s side.” Audie Murphy is here, Audie Murphy of the wild, wild courage. For what else would you call it when a man bounds to the top of a disabled tank, stops an enemy advance, saves lives, and rallies his men, and all of it single-handedly. When he radioed for artillery support and was asked how close the enemy was to his position, he said, “Wait a minute and I’ll let you speak to them.” [Laughter]

Michael Smith is here, and Dick Scobee, both of the space shuttle Challenger. Their courage wasn’t wild, but thoughtful, the mature and measured courage of career professionals who took prudent risks for great reward; in their case, to advance the sum total of knowledge in the world. They’re only the latest to rest here; they join other great explorers with names like Grissom and Chaffee.

Oliver Wendell Holmes is here, the great jurist and fighter for the right. A poet searching for an image of true majesty could not rest until he seized on Holmes dissenting in a sordid age. Young Holmes served in the Civil War. He might have been thinking of the crosses and stars of Arlington when he wrote: “At the grave of a hero we end, not with sorrow at the inevitable loss, but with the contagion of his courage; and with a kind of desperate joy we go back to the fight”.

All of these men were different, but they shared this in common: They loved America very much. There was nothing they wouldn’t do for her. And they loved with the sureness of the young. It’s hard not to think of the young in a place like this, for it’s the young who do the fighting and dying when a peace fails and a war begins. Not far from here is the statue of the three servicemen;the three fighting boys of Vietnam. It, too, has majesty and more. Perhaps you’ve seen it;three rough boys walking together, looking ahead with a steady gaze. There’s something wounded about them, a kind of resigned toughness. But there’s an unexpected tenderness, too. At first you don’t really notice, but then you see it. The three are touching each other, as if they’re supporting each other, helping each other on.

I know that many veterans of Vietnam will gather today, some of them perhaps by the wall. And they're still helping each other on. They were quite a group, the boys of Vietnam; boys who fought a terrible and vicious war without enough support from home, boys who were dodging bullets while we debated the efficacy of the battle. It was often our poor who fought in that war; it was the unpampered boys of the working class who picked up the rifles and went on the march. They learned not to rely on us; they learned to rely on each other. And they were special in another way: They chose to be faithful. They chose to reject the fashionable skepticism of their time. They chose to believe and answer the call of duty. They had the wild, wild courage of youth. They seized certainty from the heart of an ambivalent age; they stood for something.

And we owe them something, those boys. We owe them first a promise: That just as they did not forget their missing comrades, neither, ever, will we. And there are other promises. We must always remember that peace is a fragile thing that needs constant vigilance. We owe them a promise to look at the world with a steady gaze and, perhaps, a resigned toughness, knowing that we have adversaries in the world and challenges and the only way to meet them and maintain the peace is by staying strong.

That, of course, is the lesson of this century, a lesson learned in the Sudetenland, in Poland, in Hungary, in Czechoslovakia, in Cambodia. If we really care about peace, we must stay strong. If we really care about peace, we must, through our strength, demonstrate our unwillingness to accept an ending of the peace. We must be strong enough to create peace where it does not exist and strong enough to protect it where it does. That's the lesson of this century and, I think, of this day. And that's all I wanted to say. The rest of my contribution is to leave this great place to its peace, a peace it has earned.

Thank all of you, and God bless you, and have a day full of memories.

Note: The President spoke at 10:10 a.m. at the Memorial Amphitheater. Prior to his remarks, he placed a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

Please remember that The Canteen is here to support
and entertain our troops and veterans and their families,
and is family friendly.

[Kathy in Alaska]

[Kathy in Alaska]

It's about 150 miles north of Anchorage.

Alaska Veterans Memorial

[radu]

That entrance sure gets your attention. I like it a lot!

[beachn4fun]

Good morning Ma ((HUGS)
I don't think anyone could have said it better than Reagan.
There have been so many instances of outstanding bravery by our fellow Americans.
And our awesome Allies.
Let's not forget their bravery in the fight for peace.
Have a wonderful day.

[radu]

Aaaah, it’s at Denali State Park. I didn’t think that highway looked like it was in the Anchorage area. That’s why I asked.
A bit of a drive but what isn’t in AK? LOL With the gorgeous countryside, it must be a very nice drive.

I couldn’t help but giggle a little when I read that on a clear day, you can see Denali from just outside the memorial.
On a clear day, you can see Denali from Anchorage!

[left that other site]

I was in Rolling Thunder from 1991 to 1999.

But I only rode in from Boston...not Alaska!

[caww]

I will take this time to honor my father and my uncle who served and died fighting for our country.... I grew up knowing the great loss all to well....

[ExTexasRedhead]

I recd this from a retired USMC Col (30 yrs).

Party on the Mountain by Michael W. Rodriguez

http://www.vietvet.org/ptymtn.htm

Dedicated to Charley Trujillo, author of Soldados: Chicanos in Viet Nam

The 2nd Battalion of the 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, left their pleasant little Tactical Area of Responsibility (TAOR) in September of 1967 for the dubious honor of assisting the 3rd Marine Division in its mission to keep the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) from decivilizing (and depopulating) the DMZ.

We set up on our mountain west of Khe Sanh-just where I never did know, and did not very much care-and ran a few company-size patrols to get a feel for our new TAOR.

My Bró, Luis Alejandro Parker, was sent on “R and R” soon after we went north, so he missed the impromptu party held one late afternoon by the battalion’s Chicanos on our mountain. Who started it is lost to time and memory:

[ExTexasRedhead]

Wendy Bell Radio - Rumble

Some Gave All (Wendy has an awesome podcast that I highly recommend subscribing to)

https://rumble.com/v4xoj7z-some-gave-all.html?mref=22lbp&mrefc=3

We are LIVE this Memorial Day with the sights & sounds of America’s most important holiday. Hear deeply moving stories from 400+ days of ferocious fighting in Afghanistan from Army Ranger Sean Parnell, who tells us what it’s like to come home when some of your men do not. Listen to the bugles playing Taps across America as veterans serving in Congress work together to clean the Vietnam War Memorial. And hear touching stories told by the loved ones whose lives were forever changed by a knock on the door.

[luvie]

Remember Them Always
Ray Stevens~The Fallen Ones

Those Who Paid The Ultimate Price

[Aggie65]

Does anyone have the Angels Flight - I have not seen the video this Memorial Day?

[left that other site]

Memorial Day, 2024

Never Forget Those Who Gave All For Our Freedom.

ML/LTOS

[ExTexasRedhead]

A stranger set out to return discarded Army uniforms, but what she actually returned was hope

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/army-uniforms-dumpster-sergeant-keith-mckenzie/

Waco, Texas — Donna Parker began the journey to find the owner of Army uniforms she found at the bottom of a dumpster more than two years ago.

Finding the owner and answers to her questions — “Why are they in the trash?” — became an obsession, she said.

But all she had to go on was the common last name, McKenzie. Parker researched, posted on social media and even set up tables at festivals around her home in Lexington, Kentucky, hoping someone might know who the uniforms belonged to. Eventually, she did find the full name.

“And when I did, his obituary was the first thing that came up,” Parker said. “And it hit me like it would a family member.”

[Blood of Tyrants]

He was too young.

[laurenmarlowe]

 

 

We honor the fallen heroes who bravely fought for our freedom. America stands strong thanks to the sacrifice of many. Today, we honor all who served and gave their lives to protect our freedoms.

[Kathy in Alaska]

Is this the one...

Angel Flight

[Kathy in Alaska]

Hope you get to take some time off for yourselves today. Packing going well? Time is short. LOL!

[Aggie65]

Thanks: I tear up for this song. I was also in a VFW Honor Guard and commanded the team for 7 years- over 800 funeral honors, over 500 flag ceremonies on Memorial Day, 4th of July, Veteran’s Day and 9-11. I presented the flag for about 400 funerals and it is hard even now to think about it.
This is very important as closure for the family, but I got burned out.

[luvie]

101 degrees today
The AC just died.
Umpfh 🙇🏼‍♀️

[left that other site]

Yikes. I’m so sorry to hear that!

Has the sun set yet in your time zone? Hopefully, the night will be cooler.