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| What Can Arlington Cemetary Teach Us? |
| 2005-07-25 |
| The simple gravesites at Arlington National Cemetery look like they go on forever. Row upon row of small white crosses mark generations of military casualties. Tens of thousands of the nation's defenders lie buried on 600 heartbreakingly beautiful acres along the Potomac River. For the first time in a decade, a section overlooking the Pentagon is now being prepared to accommodate 26,000 more graves and 5,000 additional cremation niches. But the cemetery is being expanded not so much due to mounting deaths in Iraq (1,773 U.S. troops have been killed there so far) Gag. At least they left off the "at least" before the number as to accommodate elderly World War II veterans who are dying at the rate of 1,200 per day. Soon, the last remaining eyewitnesses of Pearl Harbor, the Normandy Invasion and the battle of Iwo Jima will be gone. A total of 405,399 Americans serving in the military died in that worldwide spasm of violence, which pitted adherents of virulent Axis ideologies against reluctant Allied nations. Hmmm...Is there a virulent ideologies theme here? It took the German blitzkrieg on London, reducing the House of Commons to rubble less than a year after Hitler conquered Poland, to convince the British they should have gone on the offensive. It took Japanese kamikazes - that era's version of suicide bombers - to finally jolt the American public awake. And with the MSM today, we'd prolly all be calling for a quick settlement before anymore of our boys were killed by the insane, suicidal maniacs of Islam...no, no ...Japan. And it took photographs of emaciated Nazi concentration camp survivors liberated by American troops to remind the world that it waited too long to respond to the looming threat. Have we learned anything - or are we destined to repeat the same mistakes? Only time will tell! |
| Posted by:Bobby |
| #20 In der Tat (which means indeed and "in deed" actually is spot on, isn't it?) |
| Posted by: True German Ally 2005-07-25 22:38 |
| #19 I especially liked the last sentence, TGA, nicht wahr? Wir mussen nicht vergessen. |
| Posted by: Bobby 2005-07-25 22:13 |
| #18 I'm not quite sure what to think of the article. Doesn't he imply that America is NOT doing enough and should be MORE offensive (against the Islamist/terrorist threat)? He sends a confusing message though. |
| Posted by: True German Ally 2005-07-25 21:34 |
| #17 I've always enjoyed developing software with / for engineers - yeah, they aren't the best spellers, but they make shit that actually does something. Pretty good tradeoff, IMHO, lol! |
| Posted by: .com 2005-07-25 21:29 |
| #16 As I have always thought, the main stream media is lazy and not too bright. They also think they are morally superior to just about everyone else. |
| Posted by: John Q. Citizen 2005-07-25 21:12 |
| #15 I do pretty good for an engineer, SS 2383. I struggled to come up with a catchy title..... |
| Posted by: Bobby 2005-07-25 21:08 |
| #14 Another article by someone who has not the honor to see Arlington for what it is. The resting place for those we all owe our freedom,and most of the free world owes their freedom to. This nutcase is in need of a new aluminum foil hat. |
| Posted by: 49 pan 2005-07-25 21:04 |
| #13 Mee too Mucki. Fine place isn't it? Come visit me sometime, I'm in the chapel at Lexington for now. I think you'll like the quiet shade. |
| Posted by: Bobby Lee 2005-07-25 19:34 |
| #12 Hey, anyone who can spell Slailing Spineth2383 should be listened to! Now if only there was some there there. |
| Posted by: .com 2005-07-25 15:53 |
| #11 cemetery - lol! |
| Posted by: 2b 2005-07-25 15:47 |
| #10 ima yuseta live bye em arleengten semenary |
| Posted by: muck4doo 2005-07-25 15:41 |
| #9 What Can Arlington Cemetary Teach Us? not how to spell, apparently....... |
| Posted by: Slailing Spineth2383 2005-07-25 15:39 |
| #8 That is just damn sad,he writes a story and never been to the cemetary and they wonder why no one is listening. |
| Posted by: djohn66 2005-07-25 15:17 |
| #7 He didn't need to actually go to Arlington. He just needed to go here. |
| Posted by: Matt 2005-07-25 13:36 |
| #6 2b - LOL! Thanks--I've never been there and wouldn't know myself. This guy obviously must be thinking of the Normandy cemetaries. "No, I haven't been to Arlington, but I've seen Saving Private Ryan twice!" |
| Posted by: Dar 2005-07-25 13:14 |
| #5 and what's even funnier is that this is a DC paper. Dork! For those of you who may not have ever been there, there are only about 2 or 3 white crosses in the entire cemetary. |
| Posted by: 2b 2005-07-25 12:54 |
| #4 Row upon row of small white crosses mark generations of military casualties. hahhaa!! Lol! What an idiot. Clearly this fool has never been to Arlington and he lets us know it in the second sentence. Whata marroon!! |
| Posted by: 2b 2005-07-25 12:29 |
| #3 WaPo had a nice hit piece last week that the burials from Iraq were happening so fast that the honor guards were being trained only minutes before the ceremony. |
| Posted by: Seafarious 2005-07-25 12:16 |
| #2 I agree with NT. This writer has a poor grip of history. Well before we encountered kamikazes en masse the population was suitably motivated by the attack on Pearl Harbor. One would think the 9/11 attacks would have motivation enough as well to see this through, but we seem to have a lot more apologists and appeasers now. |
| Posted by: Dar 2005-07-25 11:36 |
| #1 "It took Japanese kamikazes - that era's version of suicide bombers - to finally jolt the American public awake." Nonsense. Kamikazes came very late in the war -- not at Pearl Harbor. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamikaze I took my kids to Arlington last summer so that they could see the price of freedom. I wanted them to understand why their father does not believe in our fighting wars with one hand tied behind our back. We spent four days in Washington, and one of those was dedicated to the Holocaust Memorial Museum and Arlington National Cemetery. They may not have "gotten it" in school, but they "get it" now. |
| Posted by: Neutron Tom 2005-07-25 10:44 |