“Echo Taps Worldwide†Planned For Armed Forces Day 2007
Hundreds of volunteer brass players are being recruited to perform the 24 notes of “Taps†on May 19, 2007, in recognition of Armed Forces Day at National Cemeteries , State Veterans Cemeteries and American Battle Monuments Cemeteries overseas.
The event, called “Echo Taps Worldwide,†is being organized by the VA National Cemetery Administration and Bugles Across America to honor and remember American veterans through a worldwide performance of Taps. Organizers also hope the event will interest brass players in volunteering to perform Taps at the military funerals of veterans throughout the year. “Each day, America loses about 1,800 of its veterans, primarily those who fought in World War II and Korea ,†said Leslie Hampton, a Navy veteran of Vietnam and a member of Bugles Across America. “In honor of them and the service they provided, it is important that our Nation preserves the tradition of a live bugler to play final military honors.â€
During the event, players will form a line through the cemetery and perform a cascading version of Taps. Brass players of all ages are encouraged to perform at the cemetery of their choice. Schools and other organizations are also invited to participate in the tribute as performers or support volunteers. More information and a sign-up sheet are available at www.echotaps.org.
The first large “Echo Taps†event occurred In May 2005, when 674 brass players from 30 states lined 42-miles of road between Woodlawn National Cemetery in Elmira, NY, and Bath National Cemetery in Bath, NY. Playing “Taps†in cascade, it took nearly three hours from the first note played at Woodlawn to the final note of Taps sounded at the National Cemetery at Bath . In 2006, players performed “Echo Taps†at 52 National Cemeteries and State Veterans Cemeteries across the Nation on Veterans Day in preparation for the upcoming eff! ort. Th e Armed Forces Day event in 2007 will involve buglers around the world to include participants at American Battle Monument Cemeteries overseas.
“A live bugler performing Taps is an expression of the Nation’s appreciation for the service of each veteran,†said Thomas Day, a Marine veteran who founded Bugles Across America in 2000. “With more than 600,000 veterans dying each year, we are always looking for new volunteers to perform this valuable service. Echo Taps Worldwide will honor America ’s 40 million veterans who have served over the course of our history and draw attention to the need for more buglers to perform “Taps†as part of final military honors,†Day said.
This is a long read but I truly believe it should be read by all here:-
YOU WORRY ME!
By American Airlines Pilot - Captain John Maniscalco
"I've been trying to say this since 9-11 but you worry me. Iwish you didn't. I wish when I walked down the streets of this country that I love, that your color and culture still blended with the beautiful human landscape we enjoy in this country. But you don't blend in anymore. I notice you, and it worries me.I notice you because I can't help it anymore .People from your homelands, professing to be Muslims, have been attacking and killing my fellow citizens and our friends for more than 20 years now.
I don't fully understand their grievances and hate but I know that nothing can justify the inhumanity of their attacks.
On September 11, nineteen ARAB-MUSLIMS hijacked four jetliners in my country. They cut the throats of women in front of children and brutally stabbed to death others. They took control of those planes and crashed them into buildings killing thousands of proud fathers, loving sons,wise grandparents, elegant daughters,best friends, favorite coaches, fearless public servants, and children's mothers.
The Palestinians Celebrated, The Iraqis were overjoyed as was most of the Arab world. So I notice you now. I don't want to be worried. I don't want to be consumed by the same rage and hate and prejudice that has destroyed the soul of these terrorists. But I need your help. As a rational American, trying to protect my country and family in an irrational and unsafe world, I must know how to tell the difference between you,and the Arab/Muslim terrorist. How do I differentiate between the true Arab/Muslim-Americans and the Arab/Muslims in our communities who are attending our schools, enjoying our parks, and living in OUR communities under the protection of OUR constitution, while they plot the next attack that will slaughter these same good neighbors and children? The events of September 11th changed the answer. It is not my responsibility to determine which of you embraces our great country, with ALL of its religions, with ALL of its different citizens, with all of its faults.
It is time for every Arab/Muslim in this country to determine it for me.I want to know, I demand to know, and I have a right to know whether or not you love America.Do you pledge allegiance to its flag? Do you proudly display it in front of your house, or on yourcar?
Do you pray in your many daily prayers that Allah will bless this nation, that He will protect and prosper it? Or do you pray that Allah with destroy it in one of your"Jihads"? Are you thankful for the freedom that only this nation affords? A freedom that was paid for by the blood of hundreds of thousands of patriots who gave their lives for this country? Are you willing to preserve this freedom by paying the ultimate sacrifice? Do you love America ? If this is your commitment, then I need YOU to start letting ME know about it.
Your Muslim leaders in this nation should be flooding the media at this time with hard facts on your faith, and what hard actions you are taking as a community and as a religion to protect the United States of America. Please, no more benign overtures of regretfor the death of the innocent because I worry about who you regard as innocent. No more benign overtures of condemnation for the unprovoked attacks because I worry about what is unprovoked to you. I am not interested in any more sympathy...I am only interested in action.What will you do for America - our great country -- at this time of crisis, at this time of war?
I want to see Arab-Muslims waving the AMERICAN flag in the streets. I want to hear you chanting "Allah Bless America " I want to see young Arab/Muslim men enlisting in the military. I want to see a commitment of money, time, and emotion to the victims of this butchering and to this nation as a whole. The FBI has a list of over 400 people they want to talk to regarding the WTC attack. Many of these people live and socialize in Muslim communities. You know them.You know where they are. Hand them over to us, now! But I have seen little even approaching this sort of action. Instead I have seen an already closed and secretive community close even tighter. You have disappeared from the streets.You have posted armed security guards at your facilities. You have threatened lawsuits. You have screamed for protection from reprisals.
The very few Arab/Muslim representatives that HAVE appeared in the media were defensive and equivocating. They seemed more concerned with making sure that the United States proves who was responsible before taking action. They seemed more concerned with protecting their fellow Muslims from violence directed towards them in the United States and abroad than they did with supporting our country and denouncing "leaders"like Khadafi, Hussein, Farrakhan, and Arafat. If the true teachings of Islam proclaim tolerance and peace and love for all people then I want chapter and verse from the Koran and statements from popular Muslim leaders to back it up. What good is it if the teachings in the Koran are good and pure and true when your "leaders" are teaching fanatical interpretations, terrorism, and intolerance?It matters little how good Islam SHOULD BE if large numbers of the world's Muslims interpret the teachings of Mohammed incorrectly and adhere to a degenerative form of their religion. A form that has been demonstrated to us over and over again .A form whose structure is built upon a foundation of violence, death, and suicide. A form whose members are recruited from the prisons around the world. A form whose members (some as young as five years old) are seen day after day, week in and week out, year after year, marching in the streets around the world, burning effigies of our presidents, burning the American flag, shooting weapons into the air. A form whose members convert from a peaceful religion, only to take up arms against the great United States of America, the country of their birth. A formwhose rules are so twisted, that their traveling members refuse toshow their faces at airport security checkpoints, in the nameof Islam.
Do you and your fellow Muslims hate us because our women proudly show their faces in public rather than cover up like a shameful whore? Do you and your fellow Muslims hate us because we drink wine with dinner, or celebrate Christmas? Do you and your fellow Muslims hate us because we have befriended Israel, the ONLY FRIENDLY CIVILIZED SOCIETY in the Muslim/Arab area, that thinks and acts like most Americans.And if you and your fellow Muslims hate us, then why in the world are you even here? Are you here to take our money? Are you here to undermine our peace and stability? Are you here to destroy us? If so, I want you to leave. I want you to go back to your desert sandpit where women are treated like rats and dogs. I want you to take your religion, your friends, and your family back to your Islamic extremists, and STAY THERE! We will NEVER give in to your influence, your retarded mentality, your twisted, violent, intolerant religion.
We will NEVER allow the attacks of September 11, or any others for that matter, to take away that which is so precious to us: Our rights under the greatest constitution in the world. I want to know where every Arab/ Muslim in this country stands and I think it is my right and the right of every true citizen of this country to demand it. A right paid for by the blood of thousands of my brothers and sisters who died protecting the very constitution that is protecting you and your family. I am pleading with you to let me know. I want you here as my brother, my neighbor, my friend, As a fellow American.But there can be no gray areas or ambivalence regarding your allegiance and it is up to YOU, to show ME, where YOU stand. "Until then you worry me"
Can anyone shed any light on the 9th Infantry Division. T/5 Morris, my wifes dad, lived through the war and died just a few years ago. I never met him but my wife has his purple heart and his CIB (awarded 21 August 1944). She also has his discharge papers which list his Decorations and awards.
He was awarded the Distinguished Unit Badge, Purple heart, E A M E Campaign Medal with 3 Bronze Stars, American Defense Service Medal, and the Good Conduct Medal. Under battles and campaigns: Normandy, Northern France, Rhineland. At the end of this are GO 33 WD 45.
This discharge paper says he was wounded 11 June 1944.
Just as before I don't bring very much to the table but any information will be appreciated.
She was built with 24 tons of scrap steel from the World Trade Center.
She is the fifth in a new class of warship - designed for missions that include special operations against terrorists. It will carry a crew of 360 sailors and 700 combat-ready Marines to be delivered ashore by helicopters and assault craft.
Steel from the World Trade Center was melted down in a foundry in Amite, LA to cast the ship's bow section. When it was poured into the molds on Sept. 9, 2003, "those big rough steelworkers treated it with total reverence," recalled Navy Capt. Kevin Wensing, who was there. "It was a spiritual moment for everybody there."
Junior Chavers, foundry operations manager, said that when the trade center steel first arrived, he touched it with his hand and the "hair on my neck stood up." "It had a big meaning to it for all of us," he said. "They knocked us down. They can't keep us down. We're going to be back."
I have always been interested in propaganda and it's various methods of use, both good and bad. The WWII film series "Know Your Enemy" is just one of many I have viewed recently. One of them in the part on Germany is titled "Feldzug en Polan", or campaign in Poland, which I was watching last night. I have seen it before, but never before in English translation like I did last night. It is a very clever spin of events of September 1939 which make it appear (quite believably to Germans) that Poland was the aggressor and cruel 'master' to the German speaking people...committing one act of barbarism after another, while the good Adolf Hitler tried "repeatedly" through peaceful means to resolve the problem. One scene in particular stuck with me, as the announcer says "Germany has tried unsuccessfully to save the innocent civilians of Warsaw...Now the guns will do the talking!"..and they go on to blast the city's inhabitants with a massive artillary barrage.
By today's standards and media, this film would be ludicrous in it's content and easily disputed via live internet transmissions, CNN and the rest...but think back to 1939! If you lived in Germany you received your news by newspapers or, if you were fortunate...a small radio with limited reception. It would have been very easy for the propaganda ministry to conduct a very effective campaign of misinformation. Also, I believe that most people want to be patriotic (then and now) and are willing to believe what their government tells them about foreign policy. I say this partly because it has been easy for me in the past to issue a blanket condemnation of the German people without really digging into the possible reasons why they were so willing to believe Hitler's lies. Good propaganda/Limited access to information played a HUGE part in World War Two!
