Memorial Day is a sad day on the nation’s calendar, as it is supposed to be a day of honoring those military people who died fighting to protect our nation and our way of life.
General John Logan, the leader of the Grand Army of the Republic, picked May 30 as the day Union war veterans and the public would honor the dead in the Civil War. The first Memorial Day in the Union states was May 30, 1868.
Robert E. Lee had to surrender what was left of the Army of Northern Virginia to U.S. Grant at Appomattox. He did so April 9, 1865. General Joseph Johnston, who had tried in vain to link up with Lee’s men near the North Carolina/Virginia border, surrendered his army and Rebels still under arms in Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, and South Carolina to General William Tecumseh Sherman on April 26, 1865.
Rugged William Sherman (L) and crafty Joseph Johnston (R).
They became friends after the Civil War.
Many Southerners viewed April 26 as the effective end of the Civil War. So families of Southern dead started decorating Rebel soldiers’ graves on that day. Other Southerners chose June 3, which was Jefferson Davis’ birthday, as a Decoration Day.
After World War One, when millions of Southerners and Northerners fought together under the American flag again, most Southerners started using May 30 to honor America’s war dead. They retained April 26 or June 3 for specifically honoring Confederate soldiers who died in the Civil War.
Those who attack Southern memorials today (except those for Nathan Bedford Forrest and Jeff Davis) are almost all scum. They are also conveniently ignorant of the truth that it was a war that drew almost full participation of the men of the South. Of the six million white people in the South, three million were males. Of these, 1.5 million mustered into the Confederacy’s armed services. This means virtually able bodied man from 16 to 40 served in the war. So Silent Sam is Everyman to Southerners whose ancestors were in the South during the Civil War.
The Rebels served a bad cause, but were courageous in the attempt. It took two of my relatives and 2.8 million other men who mustered for the Union to beat the Southerners. One had hard time in the Army of the Potomac. The other served under General Sherman.
By comparison, Americans suffered fewer deaths and beat the Germans and the Japanese in less time in World War Two. United Americans can do damn near anything.
In 1968, Lyndon Johnson and the Congress decided to make Memorial Day a Monday holiday for a three day weekend. LBJ, who helped in the murder of war hero John Kennedy, did more to demoralize the military of this nation than any other president. His inept and dishonest leadership of the military led to needless losses of American lives and failure in a winnable war.
Self satisfied college punks and their worthless profs fomented hatred against soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines. Leftist politicians like the Clintons and the vast majority of Democrats since the Carter Administration fed the hatred for the military.
LBJ died in 1973. The eternal flames marking his resting place are the fires of Hell.
My Memorial Day is still May 30. I’ll explain why a little later.
For now, prayers and toasts for our beloved dead in uniform.
Dad, Uncle Chuck, Uncle Rusty, and Aunt Billie were World War Two veterans. Uncle Don and Aunt Olive served in the Korean War. Virtually all of Dad’s male friends were veterans of World War Two or the Korean War.
Dad was an aircraft mechanic aboard an aircraft carrier in the Pacific Fleet. Uncle Chuck was an Army sergeant in the Pacific Theater. Aunt Billie was an Army nurse in the Pacific Theater.
Dad told me when the fleet got the word we had nuked the Japs twice, he and other crew members on the deck of their aircraft carrier cheered until they puked. They knew the war was about to end.
Uncle Rusty was an Army Air Corps sergeant in the Pacific Theater. He won a Distinguished Flying Cross for heroism during a bombing raid against the Japs. The plane’s bomb dropping gear hung up, so Uncle Rusty did a pull-up over an open bomb bay and kicked bombs out of the bomber. His was only one of three bombers to survive the raid.
Uncle Rusty, when asked why he would risk falling out of an aircraft, said he considered the risk but he really wanted to kill the Japs. Killing the enemy is the best way to shorten a war.
Aunt Olive, an Army nurse, was present during some nuclear tests. Cancer took her life in the early 1980s. I and a girlfriend of mine visited her as she lay dying in a hospital in Los Angeles, ravaged by the disease and sad my last glimpse of her would be in a condition of terrible suffering. Ironically, my only vision of her was when she was in the prime of her life, healing the sick and helping the poor.
Uncle Don was a medic in the Korean War. But that didn’t stop the Chinese bastards from shooting him at least five times. Uncle Don was a quiet hero not given to boasting about himself. When I was home on leave from the Army, Dad sent me over to Uncle Don to borrow some sheet metal tools. Uncle Don said, “Help yourself, Kev. Sheet metal tools are in the box against the left side of the garage.”
There among the tin snips, the mallets, the scribers, and his templates was a Purple Heart with a silver leaf on it. The silver leaf meant Uncle Don had been wounded in combat at least five times.
Uncle Rusty was like Bill Parcells, a loud boastful and sarcastic sort. But on his award and on other acts of heroism he performed as a soldier and as a sheriff’s deputy, he said very little. Aunt Lorraine told me about Uncle Rusty’s award after he died. He dedicated his spare time to helping veterans in VA hospitals. When I had a radio show in Ohio, I would send him tapes of the shows so his veterans in Nevada could listen to them.
Aunt Olive and the Author, 1964
Dad was like Robert Stack, the original Eliot Ness. Uncle Chuck was like Lee Marvin, a good guy to have on your side but with an extra helping of meanness. Uncle Don was like Jimmy Stewart. All these actors were veterans also.
These were the men who were my role models.
Aunt Billie and Aunt Olive were two of the kindest women you’d ever want to meet. But they had inner flames too. Aunt Billie burned for her family. Aunt Olive burned for serving the poor. The world is poorer without them too.
Grandpa Sherlock, Grandpa Hurley, and Uncle Emil were World War One veterans. Grandpa Hurley and Uncle Emil were gassed and this shortened their lives. One of Grandpa Sherlock’s cousins, infantryman William Linskey, won the Distinguished Service Cross for valor in combat after he died in battle in France on July 4, 1918. Those in uniform and in the first response services can’t count on having holidays.
Cousin Tommy served in Vietnam. I served in the 1970s and the early 1980s but was fortunate not to come under enemy fire.
Granny Ruth’s Uncle George was a Spanish American War veteran. My great great Uncle Frank and his brother fought in the Civil War for Mr. Lincoln.
One of my distant relatives was an officer during the Mexican War. The general in charge of the outfit was the truly heroic Zachary Taylor.
My wife 99’s ancestors fought for Austria-Hungary until the day it unraveled at the end of World War One. Her dad was a tanker veteran of the Battle of the Bulge. He won the Purple Heart for wounds he suffered in that horrible action.
Other ancestors of mine were generations of rebels in Ireland … back when the people of Ireland had true faith and guts.
In most cases, these men and women did not seek military careers or military glory. Instead, it was thrust upon them and they lived up to the challenges the wars threw at them. And even though most did not die in combat, having to serve took some of the best years from their lives and the wounds or illnesses or exposure to radiation shortened their lives.
Abraham Lincoln, who was responsible for making Thanksgiving a national holiday, would have instituted Memorial Day had he lived. Here’s what he had to say at Gettysburg, four months after that cataclysmic battle, for a soldiers’ cemetery dedication:
“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.
It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
Lincoln and McClellan, 1862. Lincoln would relieve McClellan for lack of aggression.
McClellan would run against Lincoln for president in 1864 — and lose again.
Today’s pissants and outhouse Einsteins say Donald Trump should act like Abraham Lincoln. They never tell you that if Mr. Trump really acted like Mr. Lincoln, all the illegals would be running like hell for their homelands. New York, DC and its suburbs, Chicago, L.A., Seattle, Portland, New England, and the Frisco Bay Area would be burned to the ground, and their civilian leaders would be hunted fugitives.
All of which would be fine by me.
Today’s pissants and outhouse Einsteins also never talk about the Copperheads, their own political ancestors.
The Copperheads, anti-American traitors in the North, were especially prominent in New York City but like serpents, ankle-bit elsewhere across the North. They were mostly Democrats, like most of the anti-American politicians of today.
We study history to learn from the successes and failures and the good and the evil of others.
War is Hell. Lincoln had to win it for our nation to survive. And our fighting men and women and their leaders have the same task in front of them in peace and in war.
The first floating Memorial Day took place in 1971, when I was in high school. I resented the change, not only because it took away from the specialness of the day, but because May 30 was also the saint’s day of Joan of Arc, the patroness of soldiers.
France was divided between the English and their allies in Burgundy and what was left was in the unsteady hands of the crown prince. Since his mother the Queen was promiscuous and the King was not in his right mind, there was talk he was a bastard and he believed it.
Joan persuaded the local warlord her call from God to lead the French was true when she predicted a defeat for the French. When word reached the warlord, he ordered some of his men to join the two knights who swore fealty to her. The party of 25 or so reached the place in central France where the crown prince and his frivolous court were. The courtiers tried to trick her by having the crown prince hide in the court crowd while an impostor sat on his throne. Joan picked the crown prince (the Dauphin) out, and quietly told him it was revealed to her his father was the old King, and he was of legitimate birth and by right the next king of France.
The ladies of the court checked Joan for virginity, verified she was intact, and reported this to the court. A priest from the Inquisition questioned her, determined she was pure, faithful, blessed, and send by God. The crown prince reluctantly put her in charge of his small army.
Joan worked relentlessly to win over her generals and clean up the behavior of her men. She was practical as well. When they assumed her presence would guarantee them victory, she said they would still have to fight bravely and well and earn it. She had the officers and NCOs train the men better and she exhorted them to live better lives to be worthy of God’s promise of liberty and unity for the French.
In 1429, Joan led the army to several victories and had the crown prince crowned King of France in the cathedral of Rheims. She then begged to be discharged, because she hoped to marry and raise a family. The king and his court kept her in limbo. His ministers sold out the French by negotiating treasonably with the English, and her army was disbanded.
Burgundians (French allies of the British) captured Joan in a skirmish in 1430, and sold her to the English. Her king made no attempt to ransom her. Joan escaped twice but was recaptured. A disgusting French bishop in English pay had her falsely accused and tried for sorcery and a number of other crimes. The scumbags forced her to undergo another virginity check, which she again passed, much to their chagrin.
Like the Left today, it wasn’t enough to remove someone from office. Joan had to be defiled, degraded, murdered, and slandered.
A Hell-bound English nobleman raped Joan in prison, and some of the guards tried to do likewise, the vermin. They burned Joan alive in the town square of Rouen in Normandy on May 30, 1431. Joan died with the name of Jesus on her lips. She was only 19 when her soul winged its way to Heaven.
Joan is recognized globally for her courage and her zeal. Almost everyone wants to claim her, even militant lesbians. Sorry, Ellens and Maudes and Hillaries, but Joan was normally wired. Her officers and her brothers testified to her orientation and her desirability. Joan was a devout and zealous Catholic, and she was cheerful and kind.
French textbook picture of Joan, late 1800s
English painter’s view of Joan, 1800s
American poster artist draws Joan as an American girl during World War One. This is a detail from a war bonds poster.
Joan is beloved and is claimed by many. A few pissants who hate religion try to mock her. They are like termites gnawing on a steel statue. Not only was she bold, but she was cheerful and kind.
Snow White and Jack Jack at Disney World — Young woman’s kindness gets autistic little boy to smile and speak. Amanda Coley, his mother, shared this heartwarming story with the nation recently. Mama Amanda dressed little Jack Jack like Pinocchio. Can you as a child of God with a heart and soul and mind know this story and not cloud up? Leftists would mock Snow White’s role and insist children with birth defects be killed.
Like the evil queen who tried to murder Snow White again and again, Satan hates people who are cheerful and kind. Satan really hates people who are cheerful and kind, holy and effective. Thus the Satanic hatred against Joan.
Scribes wrote down the transcript of the trial which cost Joan her life. They noted the black-clad booted teenager with black hair worn in a pageboy cut was bold and insolent and wise even without being allowed a lawyer to represent her before the sham trial. Only a priest from the Inquisition tried to intercede on Joan’s behalf, and the corrupt bishop and the English blocked him.
After the French won the Hundred Years War in the 1450s, Joan’s elderly mother Isabelle D’Arc petitioned the Pope to have her daughter’s name cleared. The Pope authorized a trial and had the survivors of Joan’s officer corps, those still alive who knew her, to include her brothers who nearly died in combat trying to save her from capture, come to Paris and testify. The tribunal’s officers even made the survivors of the fraudulent court that condemned her come to Paris and testify.
These judges cleared Joan of wrongdoing and declared her a woman of faith and virtue who did the work of God. Scribes also wrote down the testimony of witnesses and the interrogations by the officers of the court.
The actual trial documents of both trials, written on parchment, exist today in the National Archives of France. The custodians of these records have made copies of them and translated the medieval Latin into French. They are public records.
The officers of Joan of Arc spoke of her goodness and purity, her kindness and even her crush on one of their brother officers. She backed off when she found out he was married, but still called him little pet names she didn’t call the other officers. The officer in question, the Duke D’Alencon, told the court Joan told his wife it was revealed to her (Joan) he would come home safe from the wars to her (the wife). This was another act of kindness among Joan’s many acts of kindness. D’Alencon also testified Joan was pure and did nothing unseemly.
The officers also testified Joan had the bravest men of the nation under her command, but behaved herself even though she was a normal young woman who enjoyed men and wanted to be married. The transcript of the rehabilitation trial preserved this testimony. Who better to testify than the people who worked for Joan who could say what a wonderful person she was?
Mark Twain had the transcripts of both trials translated from Latin into English to write the historical novel “Joan of Arc” – which he published in 1896. Regine Pernoud, the national archivist of France, used these records to write “Joan of Arc,” “Joan of Arc and Her Witnesses,” and “The Retrial of Joan of Arc” in the late 1900s.
On my truck are POW and American flag stickers. Inside my truck are a cloth forget-me-not and a medal of Joan of Arc. They are little reminders for me of what it can cost men and women to serve.
Notre Dame coach and World War Two veteran Frank Leahy said after World War Two, “All of the things that go together to make this country great must be continually defended from any attack.” He listed faith in God, hard work, democracy, competitiveness, and the American Spirit (the can-do attitude we as a people used to have in spades), as the things that made America the finest nation on earth.
We need to heed Frank Leahy’s advice. We also need to heed the example of our ancestors, who came across the ocean in an open boat or a wooden sailing ship, or a barbaric slave ship, or in a beat-up steamer in steerage class, and built up this country. Likewise, we need to heed the example of our ancestors who descended from those who threw their lot in with this country (or were forced to) and who worked to provide us with the wonderful nation we enjoy today.
We should be grateful for the advances in safety and pay and liberty these people won for us, and we should not look down on them because their book learning wasn’t what ours is. We should seek to defend and improve what these people provided us. And we should live our lives in a way that would make them proud of us, and our descendants grateful to us.
Thank God for our veterans and our loved ones who have gone on to their eternal rewards. May we live lives good enough that our own children would think of us likewise, and that our departed loved ones will be able to meet us in Heaven.
God bless and keep you and yours!
SHERLOCK JUSTICE
WE CAN SHOW YOU HOW TO BE YOUR OWN DETECTIVE.
