Vietman Memorial turns 25.....

It takes 65 hours to recite aloud the names of the more than 58,000 names of the fallen inscribed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington.
A reading of those names by 2,000 volunteers will highlight the 25th anniversary to the black-granite wall beginning Wednesday from 4 p.m. to midnight, and again for 19 hours a day Thursday through Saturday. General Colin Powell is scheduled to speak at the main event on Veterans Day, Nov. 11.
For the first time, organizers will stage a poetry and music tribute on the East Knoll near the wall, performed by people who’ve been inspired by the wall. I have been to the wall 2 times and both have been very emotional and is a very moving memorial to veterans of the Vietman War including my father First Sergeant John B. Leach who did 4 Tours of Duty in defense of this great country.

In Flanders Field

In Flanders Fields, 1915

In Flounders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flounders fields

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, thought poppies grow
In Flounders fields.

Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae,
Canadian Expeditionary Force

Major John McCrae...

McCrae's "In Flanders Fields" remains to this day one of the most memorable war poems ever written. It is a lasting legacy of the terrible battle in the Ypres salient in the spring of 1915.
Although he had been a doctor for years and had served in the South African War, it was impossible to get used to the suffering, the screams, and the blood here, and Major John McCrae had seen and heard enough in his dressing station to last him a lifetime.

As a surgeon attached to the 1st Field Artillery Brigade, Major McCrae, who had joined the McGill faculty in 1900 after graduating from the University of Toronto, had spent seventeen days treating injured men -- Canadians, British, Indians, French, and Germans -- in the Ypres salient.

It had been an ordeal that he had hardly thought possible. McCrae later wrote of it:

"I wish I could embody on paper some of the varied sensations of that seventeen days... Seventeen days of Hades! At the end of the first day if anyone had told us we had to spend seventeen days there, we would have folded our hands and said it could not have been done."

One death particularly affected McCrae. A young friend and former student, Lieut. Alexis Helmer of Ottawa, had been killed by a shell burst on 2 May 1915. Lieutenant Helmer was buried later that day in the little cemetery outside McCrae's dressing station, and McCrae had performed the funeral ceremony in the absence of the chaplain. The next day, sitting on the back of an ambulance parked near the dressing station beside the Canal de l'Yser, just a few hundred yards north of Ypres, McCrae vented his anguish by composing a poem. The major was no stranger to writing, having authored several medical texts besides dabbling in poetry.

In the nearby cemetery, McCrae could see the wild poppies that sprang up in the ditches in that part of Europe, and he spent twenty minutes of precious rest time scribbling fifteen lines of verse in a notebook. A young soldier watched him write it. Cyril Allinson, a twenty-two year old sergeant-major, was delivering mail that day when he spotted McCrae. The major looked up as Allinson approached, then went on writing while the sergeant-major stood there quietly. "His face was very tired but calm as we wrote," Allinson recalled. "He looked around from time to time, his eyes straying to Helmer's grave."

When McCrae finished five minutes later, he took his mail from Allinson and, without saying a word, handed his pad to the young NCO. Allinson was moved by what he read:
"The poem was exactly an exact description of the scene in front of us both. He used the word blow in that line because the poppies actually were being blown that morning by a gentle east wind. It never occurred to me at that time that it would ever be published. It seemed to me just an exact description of the scene."

In fact, it was very nearly not published. Dissatisfied with it, McCrae tossed the poem away, but a fellow officer retrieved it and sent it to newspapers in England. The Spectator, in London, rejected it, but Punch published it on 8 December 1915.

Government Appeals Patriot Act Ruling...

I read today that the federal government appealed a ruling that the government shouldn't be able to get personal phone, e-mail and financial records without a judge's approval. The USA Patriot Act prevents internet providers from telling customeers whether the government has demanded private information about them. The law also lets the government impose gag orders that prevent the recipients of national security letters from acknowledging the probes. Federal Judge Victor Marrero in September rejected an argument that the statute was a necessary anti-terror tool. He stayed his ruling pending appeal.

The War to End All Wars......

The world had seen nothing like it, and it was the hope of the survivors that their war was the "war to end all wars". This hope was dashed even before the Armistice, because the Great War-as its participants called it, in awed honour of its bloody magnitude-had let roll events which ripple to this day. Out of the four-year-conflict came the Russian Revolution, the rise of Hitler, the Second World War, the decline of Britain, the supremacy of America and the instability of the Middle East (even the 2003 Gulf War can be tracked back to the mandate over Iraq given to Britain at the 1919 Peace Conference). World War I the Forgotten War! Pictured above is the largest American World War I Cemetery at Romagne sous Montfaucon in north east France where over 14000 soldiers are laid to rest.

World War I... The Forgotton War...

I have just finished reading “The Mammoth Book of Eyewitness World War I” with over 180 first-hand accounts of the “war to end all wars”. I didn’t realize the magnitude of the war because it’s been nearly 90 years since it was fought and almost all of the participants are deceased. Has it become the Forgotten War? Despite the haunting images of Flanders’ trenches with “solders bent double like sacks”, the fighting was not confined to a corner of northwest Europe, but took in eastern and southern Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and even China and Japan. Fifty million men from thirty nations donned uniforms. When the last bullet sounded on 11 November 1918, nine million of the combatants lay dead, alongside five million citizens. It has become the Forgotten War.

PhotoHunt# 82 Classic

Ran across this gem a 1930 Ford Model T. What a beautiful car!

Honoring Veterans is The American Way...

Our TV screens are flooded with pictures of returning troops who have fulfilled a tour of duty in Iraq, Afghanistan, or other troubled spots in the world where American military has defended our freedom and that of other nations.
We see a uniformed grandmother hugging children and grandchildren, a father scooping his son into his arms, a sister racing toward her brother, and children embracing parents. These are a few of the veterans we honor November 11.

Veterans Day recognizes all who served with honor in the military, be they living or dead. But the day is intended to especially thank our living veterans whether they served in peacetime or in war. The date November 11 was chosen because toward the end of World War I an armistice between the Allied nations and Germany went into effect at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.

Some say that Veterans Day has lost its importance as surviving troops of World War II have dwindled. But with so many or our men and women fighting to preserve our precious freedom, it is time to restore Veterans Day to its former glory. The Department of Veterans Affairs distributes a poster to schools, state governments, and veteran’s organizations. Individual poster requests are honored until the supply runs out. Anyone desiring a poster can check out the Veterans Day poster Gallery and select the poster they would like to download.

If you know a veteran Please, Please Thank them for giving and making that sacrifice to ensure the freedom and prosperity of this The United States of America.

65th Anniversary of “Casablanca”..

The movie “Casablanca” was released 65 years ago, in November 1942. It won Academy Awards the following year for best picture, director, and screenplay and was named the best screenplay of all time in 2006 by the Writers Guild of America. The movie centers around a love triangle during World War II between Humphrey Bogart, As Rick; Ingrid Bergman, as Lisa; and Paul Henries, as freedom fighter Victor Lasso.
One of my all time favorite films and here are some bits of trivia about this classic.
* No one in the film knew whether Ilsa would choose Rick or Laszlo until the scene was filmed, including Ingrid Bergman.
* The piano player Sam was played by Dooley Wilson, who was a drummer, not a pianist, in real life. Someone else played the piano off screen for his scenes.
* Humphry Bogart never said, “Play it again, Sam.” Instead, his line was simply, “Play it!” He did, however, really say, “Here’s lookin’ at you, kid,” an equally enduring movie quote.

Rare Full-Body Fossil Imprints..

A rock that sat untouched in a Pennsylvania museum's fossil collection for years has rare full-body imprints of three ancient amphibians. Researchers found the imprints in sandstone rock collected in eastern Pennsylvania decades ago and stored in a museum in Reading. The body impressions of the salamander-like creature are estimated to be 330 million years old, 100 million years before the first dinosaurs appeared. Details of the find were presented Tuesday in Denver at a meeting of the Geological Society of America.

NorthWest Ohio Indian Artifacts....!

This hardstone celt and flint point were found roughtly 15 feet apart. in western Lucas County October 18, 2007 by my friend Paul Cousino of Grand Rapids, Ohio. Gems as these can be found if one is willing to put in the effort and have patience.

New York's City Hybrid Cabs...

In June 2007 I learned that New York's Mayor Bloomberg was trying to get over 1200 cabs to convert to Hybrid. Today I read that 6 Ford Escape Hybrid taxies have offically entered operations. According to the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission, each New York taxi averages nearly 100,000 miles of driving annually and the fuel savings for drivers and operators could reach the thousands of dollars every year. I have visited the city in the past and the first thing that I notice is the cabs running around that can use a little tune up or a possible replacement. I wish the mayor the best on this endeavor, and I suspect that the cab companies will continue to introduce Hybrid cars because of the bottom line....!

Fall Sunset NW Ohio October 2007....

I took this picture of the sun setting over a corn field. It was cloudy and the temperature was warn.

Beautiful Day Lilly in NW Ohio

This picture of a Day Lilly was taken outside our office building and was taken with a 5 mega pixels Kodak EasyShare C340 camera. It is a beautiful flower!

Gabi DiCarlo and Me...

Gabi DiCarlo was kind enought to let my son take this picture before the 2007 Arca Re/Max Series Event #23 at the Toledo Speedway in Toledo, Ohio..