LA Times: City Plans a Texas-Size Send-Off for Guard Troops Headed to Iraq

WACO, Texas — Not far from the ranch where President Bush is spending the holidays, the impact of the war in Iraq is being driven home in this city of 113,000.

In the biggest single call-up of the Texas National Guard since World War II, 3,300 citizen-soldiers are preparing to ship out for a year of combat duty in Iraq, the largest contingent to date that the state has sent there.

On Thursday, members of the 56th Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, and 18,000 of their relatives and friends began converging on Waco for a grand send-off.

The marquee event will be a flag-waving "deployment ceremony" on New Year's Day, an hourlong gathering in a football stadium that will feature patriotic music, a presentation of the colors, speeches, and a formal declaration by commanders that the brigade is "combat ready."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-waco31dec31.story

they come back and find they no longer have jobs or homes.

nt

Japanese held for their kamikaze pilots, right before they took off.

while the crowds cheered wildly.

Pierre Gilliard, the French tutor to the Romanov children, recounts the Tsar's mood the day after one such ceremony at the outbreak of World War I:

Monday, August 3rd. - The Tsar came up to Aleksey Nicolaievich's room this morning. He was a changed man. Yesterday's ceremony resolved itself into an impressive manifestation. When he appeared on the balcony of the Winter Palace the enormous crowd which had collected on the square fell on their knees and sang the Russian National Anthem. The enthusiasm of his people has shown the Tsar that this is unquestionably a national war.

http://www.alexanderpalace.org/gilliard/IX.html

throughtout man's bloody history of warfare.

I don't think we can afford anymore of these Divine "blessings"!

Let's end this insanity and bring all the troops home, NOW.

Waco. Figures. Why don't they march to Crawford and anoint Bunnypants their king, while they are at it. That's how many of them feel about him.

From deep in the heart of Texas,
Ilsa

but first my god is spelled God, not sure what your "gawd" believes in or what kind of blessing he/she gives.

But I agree with you 100% "Let's end this insanity and bring all the troops home, NOW." I couldn't have said it any better. My son is there and I not only want him home now, but not in box and with all the limbs he was born with.

:hi:

my only child died for the Jesusistas.

:(

but if they don't play well G-d isn't mentioned. I don't imagine G-d cares much about who plays well in a sporting event but I don't pretend to know what G-d intends but it's just a hunch.

hope they enjoy their last celebration, poor kids...

I first read The War Prayer when i was in grade school, and it horrified me even then. Twain wrote in in opposition to the Spanish-American War, i believe, and our intervention in the Phillipines. He left it for publication after his death, reportedly saying "I have told the truth in that... and only dead men can tell the truth in this world."

It's available freely all over the internet, as it was published as a letter to the editor in Harpers Monthly, in November, 1918. You can find it here, among other locations.

It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and spluttering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spread of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts, and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country, and invoked the God of Battles beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpourings of fervid eloquence which moved every listener. It was indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured to disapprove of the war and cast a doubt upon its righteousness straightway got such a stern and angry warning that for their personal safety's sake they quickly shrank out of sight and offended no more in that way.

the same shit that goes on now was going on then.

My how things have NOT changed.

Ignorance seems to repeat about every 30 years.