Stay out of Wal-Mart this Memorial Day Weekend

Praise the dead on Memorial Day

The following two paragraphs speak volumes about what we should be remembering on Memorial Day. They are from an essay published for Memorial Day, 2006, by Southfarm Press. The book is Good Night Love, Copyright 2006 by Dudley C. Gould (ISBN: 978-0-913337-56-1).

"I praised the dead I knew personally and as my admiration grew, it dawned on me that the earth is full of soldiers in such numbers as stars in all galaxies; young soldiers gone under the earth to uphold the living, losing their lives that others might prosper unthreatened; quitting life far from home, slipping unknown, unhonored into the deep river of time flowing darkly along.

"The surface of the earth, except where snows lie year-round, is strewn below with the bones of exhausted soldiers savaged and bled. Gettysburg is the mass grave of my great-grandfather’s beloved drummer-boy son, who, as they used to say, died in the Glory of the Lord, and it’s well-known how the Western Front in the first world war turns poppy red each spring from blood of soldiers in the ground—ne funestentur, defiled by death. It did anyway back when people cared. Once there was a day set aside for remembrance, limping veterans selling red paper poppies on Armistice Day. There is no more Armistice Day and poppy vendors hobbled away long ago."

Reconsider how you spend the day before you drive off merrily to a Memorial Day sale at Wal-Mart.---Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

The war against terror on '24'

Well, the war against terror on '24' is all over until next season in
January. We won't know where Jack Bauer is for months. He could be
on line in front of me at ShopRite, but I probably wouldn't recognize him.
I might get a clue when he tells the bagger to "Just do it!" though.

I think they need to rename this season's shows. They're not worthy of
being called 24. It should be named 23 1/2. What was with the last half
hour? All touchy and feely, nobody knocked off in a surprise burst of
violence. Like in the first season when Jack's wife was killed in the last
minutes with Jack crying over her body.

Learning Chloe is pregnant means we can kiss her goodbye. Nice work,
Morris. Deprive us of one of our favorite characters in a lustful encounter
the day before. You remember, the day before you were busy arming
suitcase nukes.

I suppose Ricky Schroder will be back next year with a white cane and a
seeing-eye dog. Not!

And why did Milo's brother leave before Nadia got a chance to return to
the room where he was cleaning out Milo's locker? Was it just too painful?
Andpoor Nadia. Both men that expressed an interest in her had bad things
happen to them. Dead. Blind (not the same person or in the same order).

Bill Buchanan and his wife Karen are forced to retire. Doesn't matter that
they both had more light bulbs lit in their heads than the Vice President.
He was stupid enough to think that a hot blond with a great body was really
interestedin him. That would be like if Vice President Cheney thought Paris
Hilton wanted to get in his pants. Actually, not a bad idea. Have voluptuous
blondes get Cheney in the sack on a regular basis. How long do you think
his ticker would last? Then Congress could impeach the Shrub.

Josh Bauer had an interesting day. Lost his father, shot his grandfather,
then watched his grandfather turned into ashes courtesy of the Air Force.
And now Uncle Jack has disappeared. Too bad this didn't all happen for Josh
during the summer to write up when high school reopens in September and
he has to write about what he did over the summer. Now he'll just have to
write about his Burger King job and how he watched burgers being flame
broiled instead of his grandfather.

Poor Marilyn. She probably won't have a period for months.

When will Bill Buchanan get his computers back? Will the porn he
downloaded when Karen was away in Washington still be in the machines?
More likely to have been transferred to the VP's laptop by a suckup
secret service guy.

And the poor ex Secretary of Defense. His daughter Audrey is a vegetable.
The actress played her part well; her eyes didn't move at all and I was
watching closely. Caring for his daughter is going to eat into his time on the
links.

Do you think Jack still likes Chinese food?

President Wayne Palmer, just a shadow of his brother the dead president
who's come back to life and got a good gig now. Instead of working for 50
states, he's pushing Allstate. Wayne probably has it best. He's in bed,
recuperating and he didn't have to make any of the tough decisions. His
sister is wringing her hands bedside and thinking, "Why the hell did I listen
to  Karen?" If I were him, I'd stay there and just keep collecting the
$400,000 annual salary.

It's a long time until January and the next season. Guess I'm going to have
to pay attention to the Shrub's efforts to whittle down mideast terrorists.
And we all know how that's going.

Just heard on the news while writing this that Bin Laden ordered Iraq to be
used as a base for terrorism in 2005! Not 2001. The Shrub is such a liar.
There was a lot of deception on 24, part of the story. I guess the scriptwriters
used reality as their inspiration--Walter Haan, www.war-books.com

A free anti-war bumper sticker from a military history publisher?

"Why would a publisher of military history and memoirs offer a free anti-war bumper sticker?"

What's up with that? Last month we did exactly that and I'm sure a lot of you asked that question. Our Web Site www.war-books.com is dedicated to the well-being of the members of our Armed Forces. We're in our 25th year of publishing military history and memoirs.

I personally have read hundreds of manuscripts by veterans about their experiences. It can be overpowering. Like the manuscript by a young man from Puerto Rico. He gets off the plane in Vietnam and is immediately ordered to go behind a building at the airport. There he finds other soldiers lined up facing a tall hedge. Ordered to join the line, he is then ordered with the rest of the men in the line to fire at the hedge until ordered to stop.

Realizing that there must be Vietnamese on the other side of the hedge, his introduction to Vietnam is the beginning of nightmares for the rest of his life.

Then there is the manuscript I read about two Coast Guard Cutters during World War II. A German submarine torpedos an oil tanker off the coast of North Carolina in a storm. The oiler doesn't sink and the sub hangs around to torpedo the rescuers it knows the oiler called. The two little Cutters are sent out but this is in the days without sophisticated weather information being available. A hurricane is bearing down on the oiler and sub in wait.

The two 20+ year old Cutters, manned by 18 to 21 year olds (the captains were 21), sink in the storm, overturned by the hurricane. All hands lost on both Cutters. The oiler then manages to reach a port on its own.

What I'm trying to say is that we lose a lot of young men and women in war, both psychologically and physically. They are the cream of our youth, our future. The last thing we want to do is to launch needless attacks that we can't win but result in more losses amongst the best of our youth.

That is why www.war-books.com is offering a free bumper sticker in support of stopping our involvement in Iraq.

President Bush evidently never read Horace (65-8 BC): "Force without wisdom falls of its own weight." We are in a freefall in Iraq.--Walter Haan, www.war-books.com