Prime's Worm Hole : An open letter To the Senate Armed Services Committee members

Tuesday, March 08, 2011

An open letter To the Senate Armed Services Committee members

America Supports Honoring Frank Buckles

March 8, 2011

An open letter

To the Senate Armed Services Committee members

John McCain (Arizona) Ranking Member

Joseph I. Lieberman (Connecticut)
Jack Reed (Rhode Island)
Daniel K. Akaka (Hawaii)
Ben Nelson (Nebraska)
Jim Webb (Virginia)
Claire McCaskill (Missouri)
Mark Udall (Colorado)
Kay R. Hagan (North Carolina)
Mark Begich (Alaska)
Joe Manchin III (West Virginia)
Jeanne Shaheen (New Hampshire)
Kirsten E. Gillibrand (New York)
Richard Blumenthal (Connecticut)

James M. Inhofe (Oklahoma)
Jeff Sessions (Alabama)
Saxby Chambliss (Georgia)
Roger F. Wicker (Mississippi)
Scott P. Brown (Massachusetts)
Rob Portman (Ohio)
Kelly Ayotte (New Hampshire)
Susan M. Collins (Maine)
Lindsey Graham (South Carolina)
John Cornyn (Texas)
David Vitter (Louisiana)

Senators, America lost one of its greatest treasures on February 27^th, when Mr. Frank Buckles died. Mr. Buckles was America’s last surviving veteran of WWI. Our last living Dough Boy.

Prior to his death, the late senator Robert Byrd and Senator Richard Burr (W Va.) penned a letter advocating Mr. Buckles be allowed to lie in honor in the Capitol rotunda upon his death. Since Mr. Buckles death, Senators John D. Rockefeller and Joe Manchin III and Representative Shelly Moore Capito (W. Va.) each have sponsored resolutions in the house and senate to honor Frank Buckles and his generation, by allowing his body to lie in honor in the Capitol rotunda.

At this moment, those resolutions have been stopped by actions of Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Harry Reid. I and many other Americans find these actions denying Mr. Frank Buckles this honor unconscionable.

When the last surviving French WWI veteran died, he was given a state funeral with full military honors and President Sarkozy attended the service. When the last British WWI veteran died, his services were held at Westminster Abby with full military honors and the Queen and Prime Minister in attendance.

At this moment, the French government has expressed interest in honoring Mr. Buckles as I am sure the British government has also.

Senators, Frank Buckles and the American people deserve a fitting and honorable memorial tribute to his life and service and in tribute to the 4.7 million veterans that Frank Buckles now represents via his distinction of being the last of his generation.

The time to accomplish what is right is short and soon will pass. There is only one opportunity to do the right thing. Presently, the proposed memorial service at the Arlington amphitheater is certainly appropriate immediately prior to Mr. Buckles interment; however, it is not appropriate as the sole tribute that America can muster to honor the life of either Frank Buckles or the millions who served this nation during the great war. The amphitheater service that has been proposed, also fails to take into account the many thousands who would like to attend Mr. Buckles Memorial service.

If the services held in France and Great Britain for their veterans are any indication, the numbers desiring to honor Frank Buckles could easily exceed 100,000 and the Amphitheater at Arlington cannot accommodate those numbers.

Mr. Buckles spent the last years of his life seeking to see his comrades honored with a lasting memorial to WWI veterans in Washington DC. That mission remains unfulfilled. I believe that as a nation, we should begin to memorialize these men and women now, with both our tribute to Frank Buckles and ultimately build their memorial on the mall along side the others.

How America handles Mr. Buckles memorial will be viewed not only through the eyes of Americans, but also through the eyes of those in Europe who have previously honored their sacred dead with extensive memorial services at the state level with presidents. prime ministers and monarchs in attendance.

The question at this moment, is whether each of you, representing leadership positions in the senate, and the President of the United States, will come together to do the honorable thing and honor Frank Buckles and his generation as they should be honored. Will you honor him with the highest respect and to the fullest extent of capability that this nation can muster to convey our appreciation for the lives and sacrifices made during the great war. Or will you relegate the memory of Frank Buckles and 4.7 million others to the reality that they simply did not matter to America at this juncture in history.

I believe that President Calvin Coolidge said it best when he said...”The nation which forgets its defenders will be itself forgotten.”

The eyes of this nation and the eyes of the world will determine how America will be

judged as it concerns our respect for those who have sacrificed so much.

As an American citizen and in behalf of all American veterans and especially our American veterans, I am respectfully requesting that each of you support honoring Frank Buckles being allowed to lie in honor in the Capitol rotunda. And I call upon each of you to seek to honor Frank Buckles in the manner befitting his stature as a representative of the last of his generation and as the last American WWI veteran.

Sincerely,

No comments:

Prime's Worm hole

This is a place for me to muse about the issues that affect our world. My world and my country and my life in particular. I can say what I want to here and those who may stumble across my musings, are welcome to comment,or not. America is under siege. Everything this nation has ever represented, is now being torn asunder and crushed by the onslaught of egalitarian socialism. All morals and social values have been devolved into the belief that systemic racism, is the only underlying cause or reason for any societal ills in America. And that representation, is nothing but a Trojan Horse argument. A means of getting the egalitarian camel's nose into the tent. And now that it has been inserted? There is mayhem and anarchy and burning and looting all across America. And the only questions that remains to be asked and answered? Are these. When is enough enough and when will the American people call full stop and take the law into their own hands, to repel this socialist based attack on the Constitution and our personal freedoms.

Thinking

It started out innocently enough. I began to think at parties now and then -- just to loosen up and be a part of the crowd.
Inevitably, though, one thought led to another and soon I was more than just a social thinker.

I began to think alone -- "to relax", I told myself -- but I knew it wasn't true.
Thinking became more and more important to me and finally I was thinking all the time.

I began to think on the job. I knew that thinking and employment don't mix, but I couldn't help myself.

I began to avoid friends at lunchtime so I could read Thoreau, Muir, Confucius and Kafka. I would return to the office dizzied and confused, asking, "What is it exactly we are doing here?"

One day the boss called me in. He said, "Listen, I like you and it hurts me to say this, but your thinking has become a real problem. If you don't stop thinking on the job, you'll have to find another job."

"Honey," I confessed, "I've been thinking..."

"I know you've been thinking," she said, "and I want a divorce!" "But Honey, surely it's not that serious." "It is serious," she said, lower lip aquiver.

"You think as much as college professors and college professors don't make that much money, so if you keep on thinking, we won't have any money!"
She exploded in tears of rage and frustration, but I was in no mood to deal with the emotional drama.

"I'm going to the library," I snarled
I headed for the library, in the mood for some John Locke. I roared into the parking lot with NPR on the radio and ran up to the big glass doors.

They didn't open. The library was closed.

To this day, I believe that a Higher Power was looking out for me that night.

Leaning on the unfeeling glass, whimpering for Emerson, a poster caught my eye, "Friend, is heavy thinking ruining your life?" it asked.

This is why I am what I am today: a recovering thinker.

I never miss a TA meeting. At each meeting we watch a non-educational video; last week it was "Porky's." Then we share experiences about how we avoided thinking since the last meeting.

I still have my job, and things are a lot better at home. Life just seemed easier, somehow, as soon as I stopped thinking. I think the road to recovery is nearly complete for me.

Today I took the final step...I joined the Democratic Party

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If you are able,
save them a place
inside of you
and save one backward glance
when you are leaving
for the places they can
no longer go.
Be not ashamed to say
you loved them,
though you may
or may not have always.
Take what they have left
and what they have taught you
with their dying
and keep it with your own.
And in that time
when men decide and feel safe
to call the war insane,
take one moment to embrace
those gentle heroes
you left behind.

Major Michael Davis O'Donnell
1 January 1970
Dak To, Vietnam

Captain Michael O'Donnell was lost in Cambodia on March 24 1970, while flying a UH1 rescue helicopter, trying to rescue an eight man LRRP team under attack in Cambodia. He was listed as MIA along with the eight he had attempted to rescue after his UH1 Huey was shot down by enemy fire. The official military report listed the eight as shot down 'non survivable' and 'non recoverable.'

Michael O'Donnell was submitted for the Congressional Medal of Honor for his actions that day. He was awarded the Distinguished flying cross, the Bronze Star, The Air Medal and The Purple Heart and he was promoted to the rank of Major (posthumously).

In 1978 he was officially listed as KIA by the Department of Defense.

A little about the philosophy of the author

The Borg Conspiracy is one man's purely pedestrian thoughts, independent musings and frequently cheeky commentaries...Mixed with an abundance of patriotism, love of God, and love of country.

My thoughts?

In my opinion........in another generation, all that will remain of our once great republic, may be little more than what is left to weather the passage of time in the form of a few obscure and forgotten monuments to the great American experiment.

If America should fail....let it be written as her epitaph.....died by her own hand. The greatest experiment in freedom ever undertaken, lost in the end to the pursuit of the illusion that egalitarian tolerance was more valuable than individual freedom.

Let us be warned.
Franklin, Payne, Jefferson. They all knew the consequences of the lack of vigilance and they tried to warn us. They gave us a document as our guide post. We were to guard it and revere it and use it to guide and govern our future and our posterity.

No one listened.