Veterans Day.........A Day Late.

The thing that I like about Veterans day is that we do take time to give respect to today's soldiers and to the ones in the past who served our country.  The lack of respect that took place during the Vietnam War was so sad as we were told by the public institutions that the American Flag and any military person was someone or something that made us look bad to the world.  The way in which the media and certain political powers accomplished this was wrong and it was a sad time in our history. It took quite a while to override the mind control thinking and straighten out our understanding of who we are as  a country.

I can remember when one specific political party fought the idea of creating the WW II memorial. It took years to get it accomplished after they first begun. The country ended up not building it but the private citizens of the country donated money to have it built. Congress was not going to pay for it.  One of the arguments was that they didn't want it to clutter the mall and they didn't offer any other site in which to build it. They certainly were not going to offer any funding for it. It was completed and opened in 2004.

The variety of photos are memories of those who served from my family in the army.   My dad, Jesse Burgus, was drafted into the army and was placed into battle in Belgium. He ended up in Germany participating with the Battle of the Bulge.  Over 35,000 men died in that one long battle. His photo is above and at right. The one on the right is where he is  pictured in Belgium before heading into Germany. 

My  uncle, Donald Burgus is photographed with a friend in front of a plane on the Aleutian Islands.









My oldest brother Ron was stationed out in Washington state and stayed his three years there.  This is his graduation photo and as we know most young people that are drafted end up being in their 20's while they were in the service. He was in the main shipping are of sending troops to Vietnam.

 My mom's brother, Kenneth Brown, served in California during WW II.  He was drafted out of the same Clarke county draft office as my dad, two uncles and my brother.

I have a story told by a step relative about a country school south of our farm that had four boys drafted into WW II.  Out of the four boys, all of them were killed in action.  The step relative's brother is buried in France.

I would like to share some time the country school stories of this area but haven't got that together yet. 

My Uncle Leo Forbes served in the navy during the 2nd war but I don't have a picture of him.

Below are more pictures of my dad while he was in Belgium.  Most of them don't have captions but this one of the train told of it being disabled by German soldiers during there invasion of the country.

Norman R. Bettis was a neighbor boy and class mate of my brother's.  He served in Vietnam and died at the age of 20 years old.  I spent a lot of time with Norman at school even thou he wasn't in my class. His sister was in my class.  His family lived in the house that I was born in and I still have contact with a lot of his brothers and sisters. He was driving a truck and an explosive hit him.

CASUALTY DATA:

Start Tour:

10/29/1968

Incident Date:

01/31/1969

Casualty Date:

01/31/1969

Age at Loss:

21

Location:

Binh Duong Province, South Vietnam

Remains:

Body recovered

Casualty Type:

Hostile, died outright

Casualty Reason:

Ground casualty

Casualty Detail:

Other explosive device

My point that I tried to make at the beginning was that we must honor and give respect for the deeds that were required of the men of the past and also give honor to those who are now serving. The non volunteers and the volunteer soldiers were working for our country in all parts of the world and they still are today.  We need to make ourselves aware of their sacrifice on behalf of our country. They deserve respect, understanding, and honor for all that they have done. We should not take our freedom lightly and we should not have it redefined by politicians.



Thanks for stopping by today.