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A Memorial Day Worth Remembering: A. Rooney
zipperzap
Member Posts: 25,057
A Memorial Day Worth Remembering
Andy Rooney On How Memorial Day Should Be Celebrated
May 28, 2006
Obie Slingerland and Andy Rooney were best friends and co-captains of the high school football team. (CBS/60 Minutes)
Quote:
There is more bravery at war than in peace, and it seems wrong that we have so often saved this virtue to use for our least noble activity - war. The goal of war is to cause death to other people.
(CBS) This segment was originally broadcast on May 29, 2005.
The following is a weekly 60 Minutes commentary by CBS News Correspondent Andy Rooney. Tomorrow is Memorial Day, the day we have set aside to honor by remembering all the Americans who have died fighting for the thing we like the most about our America: the freedom we have to live as we please.
No official day to remember is adequate for something like that. It's too formal. It gets to be just another day on the calendar. No one would know from Memorial Day that Richie M., who was shot through the forehead coming onto Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944, wore different color socks on each foot because he thought it brought him good luck.
No one would remember on Memorial Day that Eddie G. had promised to marry Julie W. the day after he got home from the war, but didn't marry Julie because he never came home from the war. Eddie was shot dead on an un-American desert island, Iwo Jima.
For too many Americans, Memorial Day has become just another day off. There's only so much time any of us can spend remembering those we loved who have died, but the men, boys really, who died in our wars deserve at least a few moments of reflection during which we consider what they did for us.
They died.
We use the phrase "gave their lives," but they didn't give their lives. Their lives were taken from them.
There is more bravery at war than in peace, and it seems wrong that we have so often saved this virtue to use for our least noble activity - war. The goal of war is to cause death to other people.
Because I was in the Army during World War II, I have more to remember on Memorial Day than most of you. I had good friends who were killed.
Charley Wood wrote poetry in high school. He was killed when his Piper Cub was shot down while he was flying as a spotter for the artillery.
Bob O'Connor went down in flames in his B17.
Obie Slingerland and I were best friends and co-captains of our high school football team. Obie was killed on the deck of the Saratoga when a bomb that hadn't dropped exploded as he landed.
I won't think of them anymore tomorrow, Memorial Day, than I think of them any other day of my life.
Remembering doesn't do the remembered any good, of course. It's for ourselves, the living. I wish we could dedicate Memorial Day, not to the memory of those who have died at war, but to the idea of saving the lives of the young people who are going to die in the future if we don't find some new way - some new religion maybe - that takes war out of our lives.
That would be a Memorial Day worth celebrating.[:D]
Andy Rooney On How Memorial Day Should Be Celebrated
May 28, 2006
Obie Slingerland and Andy Rooney were best friends and co-captains of the high school football team. (CBS/60 Minutes)
Quote:
There is more bravery at war than in peace, and it seems wrong that we have so often saved this virtue to use for our least noble activity - war. The goal of war is to cause death to other people.
(CBS) This segment was originally broadcast on May 29, 2005.
The following is a weekly 60 Minutes commentary by CBS News Correspondent Andy Rooney. Tomorrow is Memorial Day, the day we have set aside to honor by remembering all the Americans who have died fighting for the thing we like the most about our America: the freedom we have to live as we please.
No official day to remember is adequate for something like that. It's too formal. It gets to be just another day on the calendar. No one would know from Memorial Day that Richie M., who was shot through the forehead coming onto Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944, wore different color socks on each foot because he thought it brought him good luck.
No one would remember on Memorial Day that Eddie G. had promised to marry Julie W. the day after he got home from the war, but didn't marry Julie because he never came home from the war. Eddie was shot dead on an un-American desert island, Iwo Jima.
For too many Americans, Memorial Day has become just another day off. There's only so much time any of us can spend remembering those we loved who have died, but the men, boys really, who died in our wars deserve at least a few moments of reflection during which we consider what they did for us.
They died.
We use the phrase "gave their lives," but they didn't give their lives. Their lives were taken from them.
There is more bravery at war than in peace, and it seems wrong that we have so often saved this virtue to use for our least noble activity - war. The goal of war is to cause death to other people.
Because I was in the Army during World War II, I have more to remember on Memorial Day than most of you. I had good friends who were killed.
Charley Wood wrote poetry in high school. He was killed when his Piper Cub was shot down while he was flying as a spotter for the artillery.
Bob O'Connor went down in flames in his B17.
Obie Slingerland and I were best friends and co-captains of our high school football team. Obie was killed on the deck of the Saratoga when a bomb that hadn't dropped exploded as he landed.
I won't think of them anymore tomorrow, Memorial Day, than I think of them any other day of my life.
Remembering doesn't do the remembered any good, of course. It's for ourselves, the living. I wish we could dedicate Memorial Day, not to the memory of those who have died at war, but to the idea of saving the lives of the young people who are going to die in the future if we don't find some new way - some new religion maybe - that takes war out of our lives.
That would be a Memorial Day worth celebrating.[:D]
Comments
Perhaps I'm turning into a liberal like Andy Rooney because I too hate to see America's young blood spilled on foreign beaches.
Let's just nuke the bas/tards.[:0][;)]
When I was AD I ached for a shooting war with the Soviet Union. The glory to be had! Death didn't bother me because I knew so little of life.
Perhaps I'm turning into a liberal like Andy Rooney because I too hate to see America's young blood spilled on foreign beaches.
Let's just nuke the bas/tards.[:0][;)]
I agree. I just wish we committed our troops, their lives, and their health to something worthwhile other than getting Bush's ego burnished by his invading Iraq.
I really don't think his strutting down the deck of the USS Lincoln was worth it. [:(]
I really don't think his strutting down the deck of the USS Lincoln was worth it. [:(]
Your opinion. That and a dollar won't get you much. Don
It was a lonely place on a hilltop with a few crosses nearby and nothing but scrub growing.
I felt anger and sorrow that these poor devils died for an objective that wasn't worth the powder to blow it to hell.
Of course Korea is a country now. You'd never have predicted it then.