Memorial Day

This song was used in the movie We Were Soldiers. It is sung by Joseph Kilna MacKenzie in memory of his great-grandfather, Sargent Charles Stuart MacKenzie. According to the younger MacKenzie:

Charles Stuart MacKenzie was a Sergeant in the Seaforth Highlanders. He went to fight in France during World War One and was shot in the shoulder, the military sent him home to Scotland for treatment, where the surgeon wanted to amputate his arm. He immediately refused, stating that he had to get back to his men. During his time in hospital he was asked what it was like to kill 'the hun' (as the Germans where called then). He replied what a waste of a fine body of men.

On the steps of the hospital, the last picture of him was taken in his uniform. This picture hung in his home above the fireplace. On his return to battle, he and his men were engaged in fixed bayonet combat. To the best of my knowledge, and taken from reports of the returning soldiers - one of his close friends fell, badly wounded. Charles stood his ground and fought until he was overcome and died from bayonet wounds. On that day, my Great Grandmother and my Grandmother where sitting at the fire when the picture fell from the wall. My Great Grandmother looked, and said to my Grandmother "oh, my bonnie Charlie's dead." Sure enough a few days passed, then the local policeman brought the news - that Sgt. Charles Stuart MacKenzie had been killed in action.

This same picture now hangs above my fireplace. A few years back my wife Christine died of cancer, and in my grief I looked at his picture to ask what gave him the strength to go on. It was then, in my mind, that I saw him lying on the field and wondered what his final thoughts were. The words and music just appeared into my head.

A kibbitz from Mark, crossposted from my corner of the trailer park.

Update: Awesome. Thanks for posting that, Mark.

Obama's veterans' health care plan: Retaliation?

Just spitballing here...is it possible that Barack Obama's immoral scheme to make service members carry medical insurance to pay for injuries suffered in combat is retribution for the fact that service members voted overwhelmingly against him in the last election?

Case in point

In case you were wondering how the media will treat Barack Obama's plan to make veterans fund care for service-related injuries, here's a sample from CNN dated yesterday, the very day he met with leaders of veterans' groups and discussed it.

Flanked by Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki, the president said his budget calls for a $25 billion increase in funding for the VA over the next five years -- a commitment that will be tested by the needs of veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

"With this budget, we don't just fully fund our Veterans Affairs health care program, we expand it to serve an additional 500,000 veterans by 2013," he said.

He promised that the VA would "dramatically improve services" related to mental health, post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury, and he said homeless veterans would be targeted for support.

"Those heroes have a home," Obama said. "It's the country they served, the United States of America, and until we reach a day when not a single veteran sleeps on our nation's streets, our work remains unfinished."

That's it. That's the article in its entirety without a single mention of Ozero's strange ideas of who should pay for veteran's service-related injuries.

I did find two links about this buried on CNN's web site that I had to excavate with their search tool, but the most recent one is a week old.

Update: FOX News picks up the story.

Obama's ultimate insult to the military

When I saw a news item over the weekend that the Obama administration was floating an idea to make service members' private medical insurance contribute to the cost of service-related injuries I didn't take it seriously. Surely, not even this president would dream of such a thing. Via Hot Air, I find that I misunderestimated the depths to which this administration would sink.

The leader of the nation's largest veterans organization says he is "deeply disappointed and concerned" after a meeting with President Obama today to discuss a proposal to force private insurance companies to pay for the treatment of military veterans who have suffered service-connected disabilities and injuries. The Obama administration recently revealed a plan to require private insurance carriers to reimburse the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) in such cases.

Obama the candidate loved trotting out Iraq war veterans who said the Bush administration turned its back on wounded vets and didn't care enough about them. Obama the president, however, is taking that concept to a whole new level. That's change we can believe in?

Just a couple days ago, I received this in an e-mail from a friend and Vietnam vet:

A veteran - whether active duty, retired, national guard or reserve – is someone who, at one point in his life, wrote a blank check made payable to "The United States of America," for an amount of “Up to and including my life.”

That is honor, and there are way too many people in this country who no longer understand it.

Way too many people in this country, and one too many in the White House.

Update: The more I think about this, the more pissed off I get. A couple more points...if Veterans Secretary Eric Shinseki opposes this idea, he should resign in protest. If he agrees, he should resign in disgrace.

And what of Ozeros's supposed "political genius"? Just how politically tone-deaf does one have to be to even give this turd of an idea more than a passing thought?

I don't believe for a second that such a plan would get through Congress, but it's just possible that people who supported Obama might see now who he really is. He'll always have his core of true believers, but this news could cost him a lot of supporters, if the MSM gives it wide enough coverage, which is obviously no guarantee.

Update II: Blackfive is calling on their readers to call their Congress Critter and voice opposition to this piece of shit. Certainly not a bad idea, but there's absolutely no way Congress will pass this, anyway. Better yet: write letters to the editor of your local newspaper. Get the word out...call your local TV stations and demand they cover this. Make this steaming pile of crap stick to Obama so that everyone knows how he "supports the troops".