I just found out yesterday that one of my neighbors, who is in his early 20’s, has volunteered to go to Iraq. When asked why he made that decision his reply spoke volumes, “If I didn’t go then someone else would have to.” The reason we have the best military force in the world is because of soldiers who share that sense of sacrifice for the greater good. We are blessed to have so many young men and women of character serving under our flag.
On that note, on behalf of the Orange Juice blog team, I thank all of our men and women in the U.S. military for their service, on this Memorial Day, particularly those who served but did not come back alive and also the families of our service men and women, past and present. We would not enjoy our freedom without the greatest volunteer armed forces in the world.
There will be a regional Memorial Day service today, at 10 a.m., in Santa Ana, according to the O.C. Register. The Tustin area American Legion holds a Memorial Day Ceremony at the Santa Ana cemetery at Fairhaven Memorial Park. Orange, Tustin and Santa Ana participate in the yearly ceremony. There will be speeches, a laying of a wreath and color guard. Ceremony is held at the entrance at the Grand Army of the Republic Memorial.
For a complete list of Orange County Memorial Day events, click here.
Did you know that 69,000 foreign-born soldiers are currently serving in the U.S. military? These soldiers make up nearly 5% of the military personnel on active duty.
Latinos have served with distinction in the U.S. military since our nation’s inception, including nearly 500,000 in World War II, and nearly 40 Latinos have won our nation’s highest award, the Congressional Medal of Honor. More than 53,000 Hispanics were on active duty in 2003 and another 1.1 million are veterans of the U.S. military. Many have also been honored with American citizenship as a result of their military service; more than 25,000 immigrants who have served in the military have become U.S. citizens through a special wartime military naturalization statute. (National Council of La Raza)
Latinos are also paying the price in Iraq right now. Currently more Latinos have died in Iraq, in service to our country, than any other minority. In total over 400 Latinos have died in Iraq, comprising over ten percent of the fatalities. (See graphic above, courtesy of www.icasualties.org).
I wonder if anti-immigrants like Mimi Walters know that there are many Latino immigrants serving in our U.S. military right now? Somehow I doubt it.
This is off topic, but Im ready to memorialize this site. Since your migration I have not been able to view more than a single story at this site at a a time and have been forced to leave my email. Im in a profession that does not look kindly upon this blog. I can no longer find threads that I followed for years. It is with great regret that I must stop visiting this site. Lots of ppl I know have the same problem.
I’d like a moment of silence for all the blog soldiers who have fallen during this transition.
#1,
All you have to do is post using a fake email address, such as anon@anon.com.
As for our old threads, you can visit them at our old blog, or you can look for them in our current archives. Or email me if you need help, at apedroza@earthlink.net.
Thanks for reading the Orange Juice.
Your neighbor is a brave and patriotic young man, Art, but I wish you’d told him that isn’t true; if he hadn’t gone to Iraq nobody would have had to go in his place, it’s not Vietnam. If enough young people stop signing up, it will force them to end this pointless war sooner.
Later with a sane administration in charge, and some wisdom restored to our foreign policy, it may be less bad of an idea to join the military, again.
Vern,
Well, he told my sister in law, who is a friend of his family. I personally hate to see so many great men and women getting killed in a war we never should have started.
I believe this war will cost the GOP the White House in November, unless the Dems stupidly nominate Hillary. I will vote for Bob Barr in that case.
Vern,
You are right this isn’t Vietnam and todays military is all volunteer. Unlike us todays kids have a choice. I didn’t and I assume neither did you.
Odd as it may seem there are still many men and women that believe it is their duty to enlist. Some do it because they want a better life than what they had at home, or for college or for a chance to learn a job skill our pathetic schools don’t seem to provide anymore. A few even enlist to gain structure in their life or perhaps the need of purpose. I don’t exactly know since our war was not volunteer.
What I am pretty sure of though is that if every kid in this country took the stand you suggest, those already in would take up the slack. Many already have, serving 2-3 or more tours of duty.
Living in California I think sometimes we forget that the heartland of this nation consists of people that believe in our country and are willing to enlist and fight in a war we can all agree is not right. If we had just turned Afghanistan into a parking lot, I doubt we would be having a debate today over the war but sadly that is not the case.
My grandson enlisted about 6 months ago and is being deployed in the next few weeks. In his youthful exuberance he is eager to get over there and “help”. I tried to disuade him but living in the heartland of America he felt the need to fight for her. It’s hard to argue with that. I didn’t have a choice but he did and he made it. I respect him for that.
As Art wrote in this thread there are many Hispanics in the military. There are also many Afro-Americans, Vietnamese and all races with one common goal. I can’t fault that even over a faulty war and on Memorial Day I certainly wouldn’t write a comment such as you wrote.
Art #5: Better choices than Bob Barr if Hillary manages to make off with my party’s nomination: Ralph Nader, independent. Cynthia McKinney, Green. Or, best of all, write in Ron Paul, like all his supporters are doing. I can’t wait to see what mischief the Paul people have in store for McSame’s coronation ceremony in wide-stance Minneapolis.
Anon. #6: You may be right. You know who agrees with you, someone I admire a lot, the fiery Iraq-War critic Scott Ritter, who made a nuanced and passionate case that it is still worth joining the military in this very worthwhile and interesting essay:
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/05/05/8718/
Vern,
Thank you for steering me to that essay. It was very enlightening. You and I may understand each other more than I realized. I appreciate you taking the time to direct me to it. But before we get all warm and fuzzy, I still don’t agree with your timing on your article or comment. Yesterday or tomorrow would have done just as well. Just my opinion.
Art,
I’m so glad that you managed to work the politics of race into what should be a solemn memory of those who have died defending our nation, regardless of race, color or creed. I thought only Democrats did that.