Free Republic

God bless Robert Rosebrock who dedicates his lifetime to bring Homeless war vets HOME Like an indelible vision of long-gone soldiers that live forever in the memories of their loved ones, Robert Rosebrock has appeared for more than 500 consecutive Sundays and every Memorial Day since March 9, 2008 outside the gates of the Greater Los Angeles Veterans Affairs (GLAVA) park calling public attention to America’s abandoned homeless veterans. It’s a tragic pictorial of homeless and hungry war veterans coming to peer longingly through the gates at what is rightfully theirs through a wrought iron fence.

NSW is under pressure to ban children from marching alongside their fathers and grandfathers in the Anzac Day parade because they outnumber veterans by almost seven-to-one. New rules introduced by Brisbane's Anzac Day organisers for this year's main march bar the descendants of Anzacs from participating to "preserve the dignity" of the event. Organisers said the change was necessary to avoid the march becoming like Sydney's parade last year. "Last year in Sydney there were 1000 World War II veterans and 7000 descendants. It got to the stage where the veterans can't be recognised for the descendants," said Queensland committee...

Time magazine called "The Hurt Locker" "a near-perfect war film," but Ryan Gallucci, an Iraq war veteran, had to turn the movie off three times, he says, "or else I would have thrown my remote through the television." Critics adore the film and it has been nominated for nine Oscars -- a feat matched only by "Avatar," the top-grossing movie of all time -- but Paul Rieckhoff, founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, says that's "nine more Oscar nominations than it deserves. I don't know why critics love this silly, inaccurate film so much," he wrote on his...

Health and safety killjoys tell war veterans they are too old to hoist the Union Flag over town hall Last updated at 02:38am on 26.07.08      Up in arms: Veterans John Ireland (right) and Keith Hutchins in front of the town hall In their younger days, they risked death and injury to fight for their country against the Nazis and other enemies.  But, now, war veterans who want to fly the Union Flag proudly above their town hall are being defeated by a barrage of health and safety rules.  Royal British Legion members had scented victory after fighting...

Crosses must stand By: RICK REISS - For The Californian Many moviegoers will remember the moving scenes from "Saving Private Ryan" showing the thousands of American graves at the Normandy cemetery. The graves exhibit the sacrifice of the American servicemen who perished on D-Day during World War II. These scenes were filmed at the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial. The cemetery, along with other cemeteries from North Africa to the Philippines, is operated by the American Battle Monuments Commission. The commission is an independent agency of the executive branch of the federal government. Most of these American headstones resting in...

TUCKING into a McDonald’s burger in south London last week, Chris Pasipamire did not look like one of the war veterans who organised the farm seizures ordered in Zimbabwe by President Robert Mugabe. Wearing a leather jacket and three bangles representing the Shona spirits of his homeland, Pasipamire shook his head in apparent despair at the violence that has brought Zimbabwean agriculture to a standstill. Pasipamire, 44, said he had come to Britain to study for a doctorate in land reform, preferably at Greenwich University, so that he could help achieve “peaceful coexistence with whites”. A different impression of Pasipamire...

Masowe, Zimbabwe Frankly, I am a bit nervous. Someone has said I'll get killed, looking all white and foolish out here in Mashonaland, and I am beginning to see why. We're only a couple of hundred yards away from the thugs wielding pipes, swords and guns who have been persecuting the local farmers. Three weeks ago, they bludgeoned one of the workers to death. Then they attacked Tommy Bayley, a farmer, and tried to throw him on to a fire. And now the idea is that we will go up to their picket line and see if they will let...