First Memorial Day in a long time that I didn't make it to the cemetery or on a Scouting activity with flag retiring.

Growing up most of my friends were veterans of WW2, Korea, Vietnam. Was quite honored to meet a couple WW1 veterans at a Boy Scout Camporee held at the Old Soldier's Home in Orting Washington when I was in school.

While in US Navy "A" school in 95, I was quite honored to attend Memorial Day at the Tomb of the Confederate Unknown, at Beauvoir, Jefferson Davis's coastal manor turned soldiers home in Biloxi MS.

I've placed Wermacht flags on the resting places of German WW2 vets. Union Jacks on Revolutionary War British graves in new York. Got in trouble for flipping off Custer's stone at the Little Bighorn Battlefield (even though he was replanted elsewhere).

Like the war or hate the war, your side or the other guys' side, this holiday was started by a Union general to honor ALL war dead. If you want to feel sorry for the civilian dead, that's covered.

I think the war in the sandbox is a waste of time. Bring them home, drop one Sarin bomb on the area in memory of every U.S. KIA, nuke the remainder and go on to more important things. You need not agree, but the blood and sweat of every American veteran gives me the right to think that way. The same as it gives to steal and squander marxist liberal crybabies.