Anyone other DUers watching D-Day ceremonies
I am fascinated by the way men use religion to cover up the real truth about war - men fighting for power and resources.
I don't know how Great is thy Faithfulness as young men die for no good reason in most wars.
Here come Obama & Hollande - damn Obama is tall. 
= new reply since forum marked as read
MSNBC has their crack team over there. 
Last edited Fri Jun 6, 2014, 07:34 AM - Edit history (1)
One good friend I lost in Vietnam was Joe Hearne Rufty. It wasn't until 20 years later when I found his family that I learned that Joe was named after his uncle, his father's brother, who died at Anzio in WWII.
Try to wrap your mind around this:
July 21, 1917 - June 2, 1944
KIA Anzio Beach, Italy
Joe Hearne Rufty, Salisbury, NC
February 23, 1945 - January 29, 1970
KIA Thua Thien Province, I Corps, South Vietnam
R.I.P.
I've told my story about Joe here before...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=1911231
Edited to add the post from the link above:
(And it's always a pleasure to "bump into" you here. LL. I still remember when we first "met" on that thread... The rest of this post is the kind of stuff that I think you are intimately familiar with. )
All kinds of things can trigger our memories and emotions--even, as the OP notes, things that may have been psychologically suppressed for a long time.
Without being consciously aware of what I was doing, after I lost my Mom I began making peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches again--even cutting them just the way Mom did when I was a little boy and she was making my bag lunches for school. (Subsequently re-creating Mom's recipe for Hamburger Soup was more of a conscious effort, both as a comfort to me and a remembrance of, and tribute to, her.)
I lost my Dad way back in HS, but it was only many years later, when I caught a whiff of some stranger's Old Spice Aftershave, that I suddenly experienced flashbacks of my Dad. He was an Old Spice guy.
But the most profound experience of this kind that I had came some years after Vietnam. (I know you've heard this before, but I'll re-tell it here.)
When my wife was a nurse at UCLA hospital, we went to a Saturday afternoon party for medical staff at somebody's place in Westwood. I was sitting on the couch when suddenly, from behind me, I heard the sound of a Laugh Box. Tears started pouring down my face, which scared the hell out of me because I had no idea why that was happening.
It was only when I slipped into the bathroom to wash my face that it started coming back to me. Joe Rufty and the fucking Laugh Box.
The day Joe Rufty got hit by machine gun fire and was down with a sucking chest wound nearby, and ground fire was too intense for the Medevac chopper to get in.
I had 36 men in my Infantry platoon, and they volunteered--unanimously--to rappel into the firefight in what certainly would have been a suicidal attempt to take the pressure off so Joe could be extracted. HQ turned us down, and we couldn't have saved Joe anyway.
About a month earlier I'd spent Christmas Day, 1969, on a hilltop out in the jungle with Joe and his platoon. When a chopper delivered supplies and mail, Joe got a package from home with a bottle of whiskey, home-made chocolate chip cookies---and a Laugh Box.
Joe shared the cookies, and the whiskey--making sure everybody got a taste, but only a taste--in case we got some action. As we played cards in a poncho hooch out in the jungle on what Joe's men would come to remember as 'Christmas Hill', every so often someone would hit the button on the laugh box, and we'd all crack up.
Christmas was otherwise uneventful, though we had numerous engagements in the following weeks. During that time, Joe and I had to coordinate by radio, and he would often activate the laugh box over the radio, giving all of us a laugh and a brief respite from the war.
The laugh box, the selflessness of those good, good men I was privileged to serve with, and being so close by yet unable to help Joe (when I knew he would have been there for me if I was down), combined to make Joe's loss more impactful for me than the day I was wounded nine days after Joe died.
It only added to that impact when I found Joe's family 20 years later--and learned he'd been named after an uncle who was KIA at Anzio in WWII.
R.I.P. Mom and Dad, and Joe Hearne Rufty, Panel 14W, line 80.
that is, if it worked. Until he passed away, I'd always think fondly of him blowing away at her whenever I heard it. Now, I only wish I could hear him play, one more time.
(we all knew the words to it, too, and would sing along with him to drown her out) 
We had the American Legion (I think, can't really remember now which vets group it was) come to play Taps when my daddy was buried. But when the time came, all they did was turn on a boombox, which my mother took as an insult (and actually, us kids were shocked, too). My dad had played at the graveside of every war buddy he had and even for some much younger soldiers that he'd never known, it's what a bugler did.
My brother told me that at our cemetery's annual memorial service that was held just this past Sunday, he went up to the young woman who was holding the horn before the ceremony, to commend and complement her for actually playing Taps for the service. She blushed and told him that she didn't actually know Taps, then she showed him this little gizmo stuck in the bell (looked like a mute) and it was set up to play a recording. He was flabbergasted and I still can't even believe it. (tho, that does seem a bit better than a boom box.)
I remember you telling me about the Screaming Eagle pin and your nephew.
We actually had a live bugler for Taps, but the tape might have been better. 
But the best thing was the kid who kept coming back every single day--MULTIPLE times every day--asking questions.
Young Ethan, who had just turned 9, was jazzed about the military weapons and equipment someone had gotten a permit to display outside but adjacent to the Wall. He also was jazzed about military medals.
Normally I don't talk to kids about weapons or medals but in Ethan's case something told me to be patient and answer all of his questions. And to point out some of the less glamorous sides of military service.
Ethan always came with his dad, but after a few days he brought his mom out to meet me because she had heard so much about me. I think the real reason she came was because she was grateful for anyone who would splash a little cold water on her son's visions of guts and glory.
Toward the end, Ethan gave me a copy of the school report he'd said he was writing about his visits. I shared it with the rest of the Wall Team, and it blew us away. Ethan wrote that the Memorial is often called the Wall that Heals, but he thought it should be called the Wall that Teaches--and that's what he titled his report.
I got a personal kick out of his talking generally about the vets he interviewed, and then saying, at the end, that he also made a new friend--and he named (pinboy3niner).
At the closing ceremony the head of our Wall Team told Ethan's story and announced, with Ethan and his whole family there, that we were making him an Honorary Member of our Wall Team. He was called up to the podium, where I presented him with an AV Wall (the name of this replica) shirt.
The best photo of Ethan and me was taken by the wife of the local Disabled American Veterans Commander in Simi Valley, CA:
Photo by Wendy Calderon
Tells me all I need to know
