They never got the chance to grow old like me,
Their names are on The Wall in Washington, D.C.
(I was 66 when this thought first occurred to me. I'm 76 now.)
Posted at 09:49 AM in miscellaneous | Permalink | Comments (0)
For most of us, thoughts will shortly be turning to family gatherings at Thanksgiving. (Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, some of us may feel the need to forego such gatherings this year.) Still, most of us have a lot to be thankful for. We just turned back the clock as Daylight Savings Time has ended for this year. Some soldiers wish they could turn back the clock and be whole again, mentally and physically. Hopefully, we don't just think of them briefly on occasions like Memorial Day and Veterans Day. There will be parades and ceremonies and some restaurants will be offering free meals to veterans, as well as to those on active duty. These things are all good but by themselves don't solve the problems faced by our veterans.
Posted at 09:37 AM in miscellaneous | Permalink | Comments (0)
For almost 2 weeks now i get this error message every time i try to access the Country Universe blog which i have been following for over a dozen years. I am not having a problem with any other website. Hope someone from CU can fix this.
There is an unknown connection issue between Cloudflare and the origin web server. As a result, the web page can not be displayed.
Please try again in a few minutes.
There is an issue between Cloudflare's cache and your origin web server. Cloudflare monitors for these errors and automatically investigates the cause. To help support the investigation, you can pull the corresponding error log from your web server and submit it our support team. Please include the Ray ID (which is at the bottom of this error page). Additional troubleshooting resources.
Cloudflare Ray ID: 683d32915eaf180d • Your IP: 2601:195:c200:c90:9482:ca81:1ad8:96c2 • Performance & security by Cloudflare
Since I don't listen to a lot of radio, the internet is the main way I keep up with new country music, news, etc. For quite a few years I've been checking out CMT.com and then GACTV.com. Strangely enough, on the net I prefer CMT but on TV I'm more likely to watch GAC. Why? They play a lot more music videos. A few years ago I found Roughstock.com which has a lot of good reviews and articles and I generally check out ACCTOP40.com each weekend for the weekly top 40. They've gotten a lot better recently at updating the survey. In the past, it would usually appear by Monday afternoon however some weeks it wasn't updated til Tuesday or later. Now it's generally available by Saturday morning. There seems to be a pattern to the top 40. On alternating weeks, there will be a lot of movement with some songs moving up or down a half dozen or more slots or very little movement with no song moving more than 3 in either direction.
A few weeks ago I was looking to see if anything had been written about a Matraca Berg song, "The Dreaming Fields" and I stumbled upon a country music blog called Country Universe (It can be accessed at www.countryuniverse.net). The blog was started in 2004 by one of the six writers at CU, Kevin Coyne. They have a lot of good reviews on a wide variety of country artists, interviews, most recently on Joey & Rory, and special articles such as their current series on artists of the 90's. So far they've covered Joe Diffie, Travis Tritt, Mark Chesnutt, Brooks & Dunn, Lorrie Morgan, Pam Tillis, Collin Raye, Diamond Rio, Wade Hayes, Rick Trevino and the Mavericks, among others. They provide a short writeup about the artist and then give you a "starter kit" usually with what the writer feels are their 10 best songs which they call essential tracks plus two "hidden treasures", songs that were not hits. For those with just a few hits, they write up a "6 pack" of songs. You can send in comments easily and it's very interesting to see what others think, what songs they like, etc. and the writers at CU often join the discussion with their comments. So far I'd have to say it's about the best country music blog around. I guess they're not worried about competition since they provide links to other country music blogs. Check out the surprising bios of the writers in the About Us part of the website - not what you'd expect.
What's great about all these sites is that it alerts you to new artists and songs you may have missed by established artists. Then you can go to the artists website or MySpace and listen to some of their music or hear the 30 second snippets on I-Tunes or other source. I no longer buy a cd by a new artist based on their debut single. I try to hear as much as I can online before plunking down any cash. I'll still buy cds by my favorite artists without making such an effort as long as they put out good albums. Some do run out of ideas after a while.
Posted at 09:35 AM in miscellaneous | Permalink | Comments (0)
52 years ago I got to leave Vietnam. Now our troops are leaving Afghanistan. Good for them. Thank you President Biden.
I missed Woodstock. If you read the papers, get your news online or watch TV, you know that the most publicized music festival of all time ran for four days forty years ago, from August 15th to the 18th. A Richie Havens song "Freedom" became famous. My favorite song at the time was a 1965 single by Eric Burdon and the Animals, "We Gotta Get Out of This Place". Today is the 40th anniversary of one of the happiest days of my life. August 19, 1969 was the day I got on the World Airways plane, the Freedom Bird, that took me away from Viet Nam. It was the most exhilarating feeling when that plane took off. I had survived my tour as an infantryman (aka a "grunt") with the Big Red One and I was headed home. I wasn't through with the army - I still had to spend 6 months at Fort Carson, Colorado - but I was alive and well. In a war that ultimately took over 58,000 American lives and who knows how many lost limbs or minds, that was a big deal.
I had been scheduled to depart on August 23rd but I wasn't going to argue about getting to leave a few days early. In fact, if I had extended my tour in Nam for about 2 months I could have gotten an early out and avoided the 6 months at Fort Carson. It wasn't worth the risk. August 23rd was my DEROS date. I always thought that the acronym stood for Date Ending Rotation Over Seas but I've seen other variations such as date of expected return from overseas. On the flight to Nam on Flying Tiger airlines the year before, I sat next to a guy from Iowa. The same guy sat next to me on the flight back to the states. Don't know if that's unusual or not. We got assigned to different units so I hadn't seen him for almost a year. If I saw a picture of him as he looked back then I think I'd recognize him although I have no recollection of his name.
I was a draftee. I did not volunteer to go to Nam. But I knew that once my year was up I would not have to go back. If someone told me that I would have to return I think I would seriously have considered heading to Canada. I can't imagine doing 3, 4 or 5 tours like some of our soldiers have in Iraq and Afghanistan. While we're out attending concerts and ballgames, they're enduring many hardships and facing death or dismemberment on a daily basis from IEDs, car bombs, etc. The stress must be unbelievable. To leave a combat zone but know that you have to return obviously takes away a lot of the joy from getting back to the states. Some may say that they enlisted and should have known the risks involved. That doesn't make it any easier on them or their loved ones. I hope to soon see the day when we have no troops in a combat zone.
Posted at 06:49 AM in miscellaneous | Permalink
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Posted at 08:38 AM in miscellaneous | Permalink | Comments (0)
They never got the chance to grow old like me,
Their names are on The Wall in Washington, D.C.
(I was 66 when this thought first occurred to me. I'm 75 now.)
5 years later:
With Memorial Day fast approaching, it seems like an appropriate time to mention www.virtualwall.org. When you open the site, you are greeted with this message: The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, DC honors those who died in the Vietnam War. Their relatives and friends leave letters, poems and photographs at the Veterans Memorial Wall and on this website. We bring the Vietnam Memorial Wall to your home to remember the sacrifices of the fallen and their families.
The options for the Memorial Pages are directly below the greeting. The easiest way to find information on friends or relatives who died in the war is to click on the first option, "By Last Name". Click on full profile and you'll be presented with a screen containing personal, military and casualty data. - date of birth, home of record, rank, MOS, unit, information about how the casualty occurred, small arms fire, etc. and the date. (for most Army casualties, the MOS is 11B - infantry) Some pages also include photos and or text remembrances. (Due to a software problem, the site is not taking any new text remembrances at this time.)
One of the other options is "Send Us a Photo". My daughter had recently taught me how to scan photos, so I emailed a few pictures of guys from my unit whose names are on The Wall. The photos had been taken 48 years ago with a Kodak Instamatic, a point-and- shoot camera. I shortly received an email response from a volunteer. In a few weeks, the photos were posted on the Virtual Wall. It wasn't a difficult process. If you're a Vietnam veteran or a friend or relative of one, maybe you'll consider sending in any photos you may have. The site indicates that the photos may be of the person named on The Wall at any age and may include family or friends. They discourage sending original photos by mail due to the risk of loss or damage.
If you are interested in learning about the history of the wall, click on "About the Wall". I would recommend visiting The Wall if you're planning a trip to Washington, DC. I visited The Wall about 30 years ago. It was a very moving experience, especially finding the names of the guys I served with.
They never got the chance to grow old like me
Their names are on The Wall in Washington, DC.
Posted at 12:51 PM in miscellaneous | Permalink | Comments (0)
Posted at 12:36 PM in miscellaneous | Permalink | Comments (0)
Wednesday, November 11th is Veterans Day. As I have for the past 8 years, I'm making a pitch to the few readers I have to contribute to disabled veterans.
A little before Veterans Day 4 years ago, I attended a small reunion of Vietnam veterans who served with Mike Platoon of Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 28th Infantry (Black Lions) of the 1st Infantry Division (The Big Red One). There were just 10 of us plus our wives and the brother of a young man killed a week before Christmas in 1968 and the sister of a young man killed in July of 1969. Some of us brought photos and other memorabilia from Nam. We had a ceremony for twenty men from our platoon who didn't make it home.
For most of us, thoughts will shortly be turning to family gatherings at Thanksgiving. (Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, we probably will need to forego such gatherings this year.) Still, most of us have a lot to be thankful for. We just turned back the clock a few days ago as Daylight Savings Time has ended for this year. Some soldiers wish they could turn back the clock and be whole again, mentally and physically. Hopefully, we don't just think of them briefly on occasions like Memorial Day and Veterans Day. There will be parades and ceremonies and some restaurants will be offering free meals to veterans, as well as to those on active duty. These things are all good but by themselves don't solve the problems faced by our veterans.
Since 1973 when the military draft ended, the youth of America has not had to delay getting on with their future by spending two years in the military. The all volunteer military has met our war related challenges. Largely as a result of multiple tours of duty in combat areas during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, in addition to loss of limbs, etc. which require extensive physical rehab, we still have many veterans trying to cope with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI).
If you ask anyone if they support the troops, it's highly likely that 99% will say yes. If you were able to see how many gave more than lip service, the percentage would most likely be a lot lower. Granted there are many who are unable to contribute financially and then there are those who have volunteered their time to help disabled veterans. It's certainly possible that the thought of giving to an organization supporting disabled veterans just hasn't occurred to many of our citizens.
The DAV (Disabled American Veterans - www.dav.org) is one of the best organizations to which you can contribute.
It's not the only worthy organization. Before giving to any organization claiming to aid veterans (or any other charity), you should check them out on www.give.org (the Better Business Bureau Wise Giving Alliance) to make sure they're legitimate. To be accredited by the BBB (Better Business Bureau), a charity has to meet 20 standards for charity accountability. The DAV has met these standards. Don't assume that all well known charities meet the standards of the BBB Wise Giving Alliance.
11/8/12 - Soldier Songs (updated with more recent songs)
11/13/10 - Soldier's Joy and Civil War Surgery
Posted at 11:32 AM in miscellaneous | Permalink | Comments (0)
Posted at 10:59 AM in miscellaneous | Permalink | Comments (0)
Memorial Day (previously but now seldom called Decoration Day is a federal holiday in the United States for honoring and mourning the military personnel who had died while serving in the United States Armed Forces. The holiday is now observed on the last Monday of May, having been observed on May 30 from 1868 to 1970. (thank you wiki.)
While Memorial Day honors all military personnel who died serving in the USAF, I don't believe that it would be inappropriate to provide information for the veterans of a particular war that one served in. Hence here's some information regarding www.virtualwall.org. When you open the site, you are greeted with this message: The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, DC honors those who died in the Vietnam War. Their relatives and friends leave letters, poems and photographs at the Veterans Memorial Wall and on this website. We bring the Vietnam Memorial Wall to your home to remember the sacrifices of the fallen and their families.
The options for the Memorial Pages are directly below the greeting. The easiest way to find information on friends or relatives who died in the war is to click on the first option, "By Last Name". Click on full profile and you'll be presented with a screen containing personal, military and casualty data. - date of birth, home of record, rank, MOS, unit, information about how the casualty occurred, small arms fire, etc. and the date. (for most Army casualties, the MOS is 11B - infantry) Some pages also include photos and or text remembrances. (Due to a software problem, the site is not taking any new text remembrances at this time.)
One of the other options is "Send Us a Photo". My daughter had recently taught me how to scan photos, so I emailed a few pictures of guys from my unit whose names are on The Wall. The photos had been taken 51 years ago with a Kodak Instamatic, a point-and- shoot camera. I shortly received an email response from a volunteer. In a few weeks, the photos were posted on the Virtual Wall. It wasn't a difficult process. If you're a Vietnam veteran or a friend or relative of one, maybe you'll consider sending in any photos you may have. The site indicates that the photos may be of the person named on The Wall at any age and may include family or friends. They discourage sending original photos by mail due to the risk of loss or damage.
If you are interested in learning about the history of the wall, click on "About the Wall". I would recommend visiting The Wall if you're planning a trip to Washington, DC. I visited The Wall over 30 years ago. It was a very moving experience, especially finding the names of the guys I served with.
They never got the chance to grow old like me
Their names are on The Wall in Washington, DC.
Posted at 08:15 AM in miscellaneous | Permalink | Comments (0)
Posted at 07:26 AM in miscellaneous | Permalink | Comments (0)
I hope we have no troops in a combat zone someday soon too. The longer they are there the more it seems they will always be there, but I hope that's not the case. I am very glad you got to come home on August 19, 1969. Very good choice doing the 6 months at Ft. Carson instead of 2 more months in Vietnam...I think staying 2 more months might have been looking a gift horse in the mouth! Plus, you came home and ten years, 4 months and 2 days later had ME! Very good call:)
Posted by: Kathleen | August 21, 2009 at 05:33 PM