this diary is dedicated to all who suffer because of war and other disasters
cross-posted at DailyKos, Booman Tribune, European Tribune, and My Left Wing.
image and poem below the fold
Fellow Special Forces soldiers carry the coffin of their comrade, Capt. Jeffrey P. Toczylowski, a Special Forces detachment commander of the 1st Battalion, 10th Special Forces Group, during his funeral at the Valley Forge Military Academy chapel Friday, Nov. 11, 2005 in Wayne, Pa. Toczlowski was a 1995 graduate of the school. He died in Iraq Nov 3, 2005. (AP Photo/Bradley C Bower)
The Gettysburg Address
Nov. 19, 1863Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of it, as a final resting place for those who died here, that the nation might live. This we may, in all propriety do. But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow, this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have hallowed it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here; while it can never forget what they did here.
It is rather for us the living, we here be dedicated to the great task remaining before us–that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion–that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.”
from Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address
Saturday, March 4, 1865…With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.
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view the pbs newshour silent honor roll (with thanks to jimstaro at booman.)
take a private moment to light one candle among many (with thanks to TXSharon)
support veterans for peace
support the Iraqi people
support the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC)
support CARE
support the victims of torture
remember the fallen
support Gold Star Families for Peace
support the fallen
support the troops
support the troops and the Iraqi people
read This is what John Kerry did today, the diary by lawnorder that prompted this series
read Riverbend’s Bagdhad Burning
read Dahr Jamail’s Iraq Dispatches
read Today in Iraq
witness every day
Click on the candle to copy the image into your own comment (you can leave it on my server), and/or rate this one – not for mojo, but to leave a small mark after taking this moment.
He returned from Viet Nam but never really came home.
Janet…I think my heart just broke. I am sorry for your loss. My father was never in the military but was abscent. The estrangement was never healed.I feel your pain.
My heart no longer breaks. For over 30 years I tried to reach out to him. But when it started to affect my own kids… the violence had to end. I had to let go.
So now I try to reach out to new friends. This is why I’m “huggy” as BostonJoe and Supersoling say.
Instead of thinking of losing someone, I try to feel that my heart has more room for others.
This is why there is so much love and support for Veteran’s For Peace and Veterans.
I saw JimStaro over at the Kos… and I told him to get his diaries over here 🙂 I said we’d meet in DC… and damnit, we did 🙂
I love huggy DJ.
((((((((DJ)))))))
(((((((leezy)))))))
(((Olivia))))
I’d rather be a love clam than clammed up 🙂
I am the same way…very huggy, touchy feely. My Dad has been dead a long time and I have come to terms with the way he was. What really breaks my heart is all these broken souls. There are so many more that will end up that way because of Bush’s lies.
And When You Walked Up I Knew It Was You and You Seemed To Know it was Me, or did you check out All the others with VFP Flags first ;c}!!
I understand where you’re coming from about your father, Too Many distanced themselves from their Loved Ones on Return and having lived it I Know you Understand what went on, maybe not than but Now!!
In His Heart You’re Still There as are The Rest Of His Family, Believe Me!!!!!!
Jim
It was odd. I was standindg where the Kossacks were meeting up. And I just walked over to the rally area. I saw your huge flag and I told Ryan, that COULD be Jim. The way you looked at me as I walked up – I KNEW then it was you. We had both mentioned the flags and codepink.
As to my dad… we don’t even know if he’s still alive. If he’s alive, he’s probably still in alot of pain. But… I think – well, I like to think – that he’d be glad his daughter was wrapped up tightly with the Veterans.
He Would!!!!!!!
Peace Sister
Jim
Peace
“…cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”
.
For all innocent victims caught in horror of war every single day, in all corners of planet Earth.
Assault the violence in hearts of men by simply saying as a start “Good Morning” to a close neighbor, instead of the spiritual silence in daily thread passing one another.
“Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”
▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
Light A Candle For
Peace, Tolerance, Understanding
and For Innocence Lost!
Senator Murray Asks “Are We Keeping Our Promise?”
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AMERICA IN DISTRESS
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For Most Understand ‘What You Do You Receive In Return’!
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…than for the cause of Peace?
in our neglect
apathy
and shallow cheerleading
we
have fallen farther
than our fallen
ever possibly
could
And Light A Candle For This Family, I Did!!
A Vietnam Veteran brother I never met
[before it disappears from their Fast Moving Lists, leaving Many Great Diaries Missed and some Senseless Ones Recommended!!]
Light A Candle For
Peace, Tolerance, Understanding
and For Innocence Lost!
peace………
to retire early from his job because the Iraqi War brought back symptoms of PTSD so strong that he can no longer cope at work.
For you big bro….
Many Reverted to their Trauma and Recurrance of PTSD as this Whole Mess Started Up and Continues!!
Let your Brother know ‘His ‘Nam Brothers Are With Him’!!!!
…and this sister too. hugs to your brother and to all on this day of rememberence.
I’m so sorry to hear this happened to him. Simply awful.
young people living their lives without weeping for all those felled by or caught up in this war who no longer can.
.
To Larry Brezinzki, a fellow student from Mercy High in University City, Mo.
A man with so much promise for living, one of the first acquaintances to be killed on duty serving his country in the jungle called Vietnam. I don’t need his name engraved in stone on the Wall in Washington DC. His living memory is very vivid but will pass with our generation.
I feel so sorry for all wrecked lives and the brutal waste of innocent lives in Iraq today. May they all burn in hell, whatever denomination. God is merciful, but no one escapes his wrath.
Many children of Polish immigrants in the U.S. served in Vietnam as belated revenge for parents who were witness or victim of the Soviet slaughter and occupation of Poland in and after WWII, the occupation and the communist regime.
PS My sister loved the guy, may he rest in peace.
IT’S TIME TO CLEAN-UP CONGRESS IN 2006!
LEAVE Iraq to the Iraqis
“Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”
▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
Published on Friday, November 11, 2005 by the Seattle Times
War Must End in the Human Heart
by Patrick Howell
As a boy in the early ’50s, I understood this desire to perpetuate peace. I used to sell 10-cent paper poppies on Veterans Day and Memorial Day to support the Veterans of Foreign Wars. The vets themselves were the kindest and best customers. Even then I could sense the pain and psychic wounds of the untold stories behind their weathered faces — though I couldn’t express what I saw.
What would happen if just 10 percent of our national defense budget were devoted to peace studies? What would happen if the National Peace Academy, first proposed back in the 1970s, became a reality as strong and vital as West Point and young Americans became sentinels for peace — outstanding internationally for their remarkable diplomatic and political skills for peacemaking? Certainly, some notable efforts are under way, such as the United States Institute of Peace, but they seem to have had minimal impact on public consciousness and on our own foreign policy.
“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”
Can we now apply this same spirit of reconciliation to our differences with the international community and truly become more noted for peace than for war?
Published on Friday, November 11, 2005 by the Chicago Sun Times
War Blurs Lines Between Good, Evil
by Andrew Greeley
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IF YOU DON’T LIKE THE RESISTANCE
END THE OCCUPATION
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