Our Duty, Our Honor, Our Country

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These songs were written by Dane Brown, a Former Marine Vietnam Combat Veteran.....If you THINK you have ever experienced Raw Emotion, then think again !!! Read what some of his listeners are saying............http://cdbaby.com/cd/o127g

"America Land Of The Free!"

"Please Send This URL To Every One You Know"

"Our Duty, Our Honor, Our Country"

From Senator John McCain

In light of the recent appeals court ruling in California, with respect to the Pledge of Allegiance, the following recollection from Senator John McCain is very appropriate:.

"The Pledge of Allegiance" - Senator John McCain
As you may know, I spent five and one half years as a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War. In the early years of our imprisonment, the NVA kept us in solitary confinement or two or three to a cell. In 1971 the NVA moved us from these conditions of isolation into large rooms with as many as 30 to 40 men to a room.

This was, as you can imagine, a wonderful change and was a direct result of the efforts of millions of Americans on behalf of a few hundred POWs 10,000 miles from home.

One of the men who moved into my room was a young man named Mike Christian. Mike came from a small town near Selma, Alabama. He didn't wear a pair of shoes until he was 13 years old. At 17, he enlisted in the US Navy. He later earned a commission by going to Officer Training School. Then he became a Naval Flight Officer and was shot down and captured in 1967. Mike had a keen and deep appreciation of the opportunities this country and our military provide for people who want to work and want to succeed.

As part of the change in treatment, the Vietnamese allowed some prisoners to receive packages from home. In some of these packages were handkerchiefs, scarves and other items of clothing.

Mike got himself a bamboo needle. Over a period of a couple of months, he created an American flag and sewed on the inside of his shirt.

Every afternoon, before we had a bowl of soup, we would hang Mike's shirt on the wall of the cell and say the Pledge of Allegiance.

I know the Pledge of Allegiance may not seem the most important part of our day now, but I can assure you that in that stark cell it was indeed the most important and meaningful event.

One day the Vietnamese searched our cell, as they did periodically, and discovered Mike's shirt with the flag sewn inside, and removed it.

That evening they returned, opened the door of the cell, and for the benefit of all of us, beat Mike Christian severely for the next couple of hours. Then, they opened the door of the cell and threw him in. We cleaned him up as well as we could..

The cell in which we lived had a concrete slab in the middle on which we slept. Four naked light bulbs hung in each corner of the room.

As I said, we tried to clean up Mike as well as we could. After the excitement died down, I looked in the corner of the room, and sitting there beneath that dim light bulb with a piece of red cloth, another shirt and his bamboo needle, was my friend, Mike Christian. He was sitting there with his eyes almost shut from the beating he had received, making another American flag. He was not making the flag because it made Mike Christian feel better. He was making that flag because he knew how important it was to us to be able to Pledge our allegiance to our flag and country.

So the next time you say the Pledge of Allegiance, you must never forget the sacrifice and courage that thousands of Americans have made to build our nation and promote freedom around the world..

You must remember our duty, our honor, and our country

"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

I AM THE FLAG OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

I am the flag of the United States of America. My name is Old Glory. I fly atop the world's tallest buildings. I stand watch in America's halls of justice. I fly majestically over institutions of learning. I stand guard with power in the world. Look up and see me. I stand for peace, honor, truth and justice. I stand for freedom. I am confident. I am arrogant. I am proud. When I am flown with my fellow banners, my head is a little higher, my colors a little truer. I bow to no one! I am recognized all over the world. I am worshipped - I am saluted. I am loved - I am revered. I am respected -- and I am feared. I have fought in every battle of every war for more then 200 years. I was flown at Valley Forge, Gettysburg, Shiloh and Appamatox. I was there at San Juan Hill, the trenches of France, in the Argonne Forest, Anzio, Rome and the beaches of Normandy, Guam. Okinawa, Korea and KheSan, Saigon, Vietnam. I was there. I led my troops, I was dirty, battle worn and tired, but my soldiers cheered me And I was proud. I have been burned, torn and trampled on the streets of countries I have helped set free. It does not hurt, for I am invincible. I have been soiled upon, burned, torn and trampled on the streets of my country. And when it's by those whom I've served in battle -- it hurts. But I shall overcome -- for I am strong. I have slipped the bonds of Earth and stood watch over the uncharted frontiers of space from my vantage point on the moon. I have borne silent witness to all of America's finest hours. But my finest hours are yet to come. When I am torn into strips and used as bandages for my wounded comrades on the battlefield, When I am flown at half-mast to honor my soldier, Or when I lie in the trembling arms of a grieving parent at the grave of their fallen son or daughter, I am proud.

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"MY NAME IS OLD GLORY LONG MAY I WAVE. =A0 DEAR GOD IN HEAVEN: LONG MAY I WAVE" **PLEASE FORWARD MY MESSAGE TO ALL WHO STILL LOVE AND RESPECT ME, THAT I MAY FLY PROUDLY FOR ANOTHER TWO HUNDRED YEARS.** =A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0........Author Unknown..........
GOD BLESS AMERICA!

CLICK THE PHOTO BELOW TO VIEW FULL SIZE.

I find it AMAZING that this photo, taken so many years ago, actually still exists!
And now someone has put it online for all of us to see. This INCREDIBLE picture was taken in 1918.

It is 18,000 men preparing for war in a training camp at Camp Dodge in Iowa . EIGHTEEN THOUSAND MEN!!!!!
What a priceless gift from our grandfathers...

The future of America -- in Iraq

By Robert D. Kaplan
for the LA Times
24 December 2005

ROBERT D. KAPLAN is the author of "Imperial Grunts: The American Military on the Ground" (Random House, 2005).

IF YOU WANT to meet the future political leaders of the United States, go to Iraq. I am not referring to the generals, or even the colonels. I mean the junior officers and enlistees in their 20s and 30s. In the decades ahead, they will represent something uncommon in U.S. military history: war veterans with practical experience in democratic governance, learned under the most challenging of conditions.

For several weeks, I observed these young officers working behind the scenes to organize the election in Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city. They arranged for the sniffer dogs at the polling stations and security for the ballots right up to the moment Iraqi officials counted them.

They arranged the outer ring of U.S. military security, with inner ones of Iraqi soldiers and police at each polling station, even as they were careful to give the Iraqis credit for what they, in fact, were doing. The massive logistical exercise of holding an election in a city of 2.1 million people was further complicated by the fact that the location of many polling stations changed at the last minute to prevent terrorist attacks.

Throughout Iraq, young Army and Marine captains have become veritable mayors of micro-regions, meeting with local sheiks, setting up waste-removal programs to employ young men, dealing with complaints about cuts in electricity and so on. They have learned to arbitrate tribal politics, to speak articulately and to sit through endless speeches without losing patience.

I watched Lt. John Turner of Indianapolis get up on his knees from a carpet while sipping tea with a former neighborhood mukhtar and plead softly: "Sir, I am willing to die for a country that is not my own. So will you resume your position as mukhtar? Brave men must stand forward. Iraq's wealth is not oil but its civilization. Trust me by the projects I bring, not by my words."

Turner, a D student in high school, got straightened out as an enlisted man in the Coast Guard before earning a degree from Purdue and becoming an Army officer. He is one of what Col. Michael Shields, commander of the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team in Mosul, calls his "young soldier-statesmen."

Regardless of whether you support or oppose the U.S. engagement in Iraq, you should be aware that that country has had a startling effect on a new generation of soldiers often from troubled backgrounds, whose infantry training has provided no framework for building democracy from scratch.

At a Thanksgiving evangelical service, one NCO told the young crowd to cheers: "The Pilgrims during the first winter in the New World suffered a 54% casualty rate from disease and cold. That's a casualty rate that would render any of our units combat ineffective. But did the Pilgrims sail back to England? Did they give up? No. This country isn't a quitter. It doesn't withdraw."

Not withdrawing means bringing stability and liberal values to a society in which people have been trained to be subjects, not citizens. Young commanders in Iraq are experiencing in the bluntest terms the intractable cultural and political realities of a world that the U.S. seeks to remake in its own image, even as their own life struggles â€” as well as their religious faith, which is generally deeper than that of secular elites â€” make them not only refuse to give up but to feel betrayed by those who would.

To label them conservative is to miss the point. Having ground-truths the difficulty of implanting democracy in a place with no experience of it, Iraq has stripped them of any ideology they might have had. At the same time, they have become emotionally involved with building Iraqi democracy.

They have developed a distrust of an American media that have not, in their eyes, recorded advances they feel they have made in reducing the level of combat or getting a nascent electoral system started. In a vast country of 23 million people, they rarely see the car bombings that kill a few dozen every day and are reported on the news at home. But they daily see the progress in front of their eyes.

What these officers represent is the frontier ethos of applied wisdom, the combination of pragmatism and idealism that allowed for 19th century westward expansion, the clearing of land and the building of towns.

Military men, with their impatience with ideas that cannot be field tested, are a vibrant illustration of this ethos, especially as so many of them have grown up in rural America (and many I spoke to came from family farms). Now their deep engagement in civilian development matters â€” in nation building â€” has extended the meaning of the continental frontier overseas.

They are not imperialists, if by that we mean that they would support unilaterally invading a country again with a large number of troops. But they are absolutely committed to U.S. success in Iraq, no matter the cost to themselves.

And as they trickle out of the service in coming years and rise to prominence in civilian life, the ability of the home front in these difficult days not to pity them, but to sustain them in their mission, could have enormous consequences for the future of American politics.

Contributed,
YNCS Don Harribine, USN(ret)

Any man or woman that has served, who may be asked in this century what they did to make life worthwhile in their lifetime....can respond with a great deal of pride and
satisfaction, "I served a career in the United States Military."

WELCOME HOME BRO DUSTIN !!

He walked the city streets at night all through the late forties. A car backfired, and he hit the ground.

It is in the eyes; in the eyes where they have been, what they have seen. Oh, you’re back.

No one who was not there, wherever there was, be it the Meuse-Argonne, the beachheads at Normandy; the snow of Korea, the green heat of Vietnam, or the dry sand of Desert Storm or Iraq can really know what lies behind what is in the eyes.
Yet we at the 'Dien Cai Dau Express' must be here for you; we must let you know that whatever you saw there, whatever you had to do there to survive belongs to all of us; for we have made a covenant with our soldiers; that wherever you went, wherever we sent you, we would be here for you when you came home. It is a covenant too often not honored, and yet it must be.

When you were small children you were, hopefully, though not always, loved and cherished. When you became young men and women we sent you to far off places to fight for us. Very often in those places all the rules were turned upside down; all the belief systems challenged; survival becoming the intake and outlet of breath in strange and terrifying, soul burning, situations.

As we Vietnam Veterans know , The Things They Carried, could, indeed, be quite heavy.
Your burdens are ours to share; your burdens are ours to lighten.

This E-mail is dedicated to you who served, wherever, whenever, in whatever capacity.
Whatever burden you carry: you may share with your Bro Joe and those of us at the 'Dien Cai Dau Express'...

Did you see an act of courage that has not been recorded?
Did you feel a terror that still haunts you?
Is your life shadowed by Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and flashbacks; does it influence each step and decision that you take and make?
Is there something you need to know about Veterans´ Benefits? We at 'Dien Cai Dau Express' will try to direct you to the proper, knowledgeable, sources.

What do you want others to know about the verities of soldiering; of nursing, doctoring, ministering in combat zones? You are welcome to share here at the Dinky if you wish....

We ask for truth; we ask for you to share your stories so that we may understand and help carry your burdens; so that future generations may know that war is not neat and tidy; but muddy wet hot/cold, dirty, and death dealing.

If you feel comfortable sharing what you ......., please do share that with us. So, for those of you still waiting to hear it, Welcome Home, Soldier. For all of you, thank you for being there for us.

Be peace,

Your Bro/cousin..

Joe
PS: Dustin arrived back from his second tour of combat in Iraq this past Feb. 11/05