{"id":1258,"date":"2012-05-27T22:12:39","date_gmt":"2012-05-28T02:12:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/netcommissioner.com\/askandy\/?p=1258"},"modified":"2012-05-27T22:12:39","modified_gmt":"2012-05-28T02:12:39","slug":"issue-312-memorial-day-may-28-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/netcommissioner.com\/askandy\/2012\/05\/issue-312-memorial-day-may-28-2012\/","title":{"rendered":"Issue 312 \u2013 MEMORIAL DAY \u2013 May 28, 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"

WE ARE AMERICA<\/strong><\/p>\n

One hundred million of us, for over a century, have honored our God and served our country in the mercantile and the military, as authors, accountants, and astronauts, as country doctors and congressmen, surgeons and senators, generals and governors, business leaders and barbers, stay-at-home parents and stalwarts of our communities, cooks and chefs and chiefs of police, veterinarians and volunteer firefighters, presidents and professors and preachers.\u00a0\u00a0 Some of us move on from our youthful pursuits; others stay on\u2014members of this movement for life. Some two million of us live or have lived in the rare aerie of the Eagle.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve found and given steel and rubber to our wartime factories twice and food to our nation\u2019s hungry for decades.\u00a0\u00a0 We\u2019ve sold war bonds for our country\u2019s supreme commanders and mowed the lawns of our aged neighbors.\u00a0\u00a0 We build birdhouses for sanctuaries and paint new stripes on our schools\u2019 parking lots.\u00a0\u00a0 We convince everyday people to donate blood, some for the very first time, and show our peers how to survive when lost in the wilderness.\u00a0 We know more than most about first aid, water rescues, building shelters from blizzards, what to do in emergencies, and how the governments of our cities, states, and country work than most.\u00a0 In 1917 there were more of us\u2014by twice\u2014than soldiers in the U.S. Army. On Oahu, Hawaii, by late morning of December 7, 1941 we\u2019d set up First Aid stations and sent our comrades out to man air-raid sirens across the island.\u00a0 Fifteen years later, we visited 36 million homes to encourage voting in the presidential election of 1956.\u00a0 We\u2019ve served at the inaugurations of seventeen presidents and at the funeral of one of our own.\u00a0 Eleven of us have walked on the Moon; led there by the first, the Eagle.<\/p>\n

Our presence is known and respected throughout our country\u2019s military, enlisted as well as at West Point, Quantico, Annapolis, Colorado Springs, Kings Point, and New London.<\/p>\n

We value justice, respect proper authority, can be trusted to keep our word, and we still practice the almost lost art of removing our caps and hats when we go indoors.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve been to the North Pole and Antarctica.\u00a0 We\u2019ve piloted biplanes, P-38s, F-16s, 747s, and Space Shuttles.\u00a0 Some of us have died in air combat, others elsewhere including tragic space launch or reentry mishaps.\u00a0 Yet we persist in rising ever higher in altitude because that\u2019s exactly what we learned to do when we were young and forming in our lives the things we held as valuable, noble, and right.<\/p>\n

The blood of countless numbers of us has dried to dust long ago in the trenches and on the beaches of France, in the Alps and the broad plains across Europe, in the volcanic ash of Iwo Jima and the sands of a hundred beachheads across the Pacific, and, more recently, in the jungles of south-west Asia and the mountains and deserts of the middle-east.\u00a0 At Arlington and beyond across our nation, and in countless green fields of other countries, the brave and best among us lie in eternal peace with their brothers in arms beneath silent white crosses and stars.<\/p>\n

We are Buddhists, Christians, Hindi, Jews, Muslims and more.\u00a0 Our colors are the spectrum of races.\u00a0 Yet we steadfastly and cheerfully greet one another as brothers, always. We see the good in the world about us, and we aim to make it better.\u00a0 To those who might be urged to joke about us and what we stand for we extend our hand in friendship as well, forgiving them their ignorance and sometimes jealousy.<\/p>\n

We are known for respecting for country\u2019s flag and traditions, and on June 14th each year we retire with reverence those which must now take respite from flying high.\u00a0 Then, at a thousand summer camps across the continent we briskly salute as we raise the stars and stripes every morning.<\/p>\n

Our uniforms make rather less than fashion statements–as if that were their purpose–but they do serve to make us one, united.\u00a0\u00a0 For a century you\u2019ve seen us in parades each Armistice Day and now Veterans Day, each Independence Day, each Decoration Day and now Memorial Day.<\/p>\n

We are America\u2026yesterday, tomorrow, and right now today. We are the Boy Scouts.<\/p>\n

Andy<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Have a question? Facing a dilemma? Wondering where to find a BSA policy or guideline? Write to askandybsa@yahoo.com.\u00a0 Please include your name and council.\u00a0 (If you\u2019d prefer to be anonymous, if published, let me know and that\u2019s what we\u2019ll do.)<\/strong><\/p>\n

[No. 312 \u2013 5\/28\/2012 \u2013 Copyright \u00a9 Andy McCommish 2012]<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WE ARE AMERICA One hundred million of us, for over a century, have honored our God and served our country in the mercantile and the military, as authors, accountants, and astronauts, as country doctors and congressmen, surgeons and senators, generals and governors, business leaders and barbers, stay-at-home parents and stalwarts of our communities, cooks and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-18"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/netcommissioner.com\/askandy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/netcommissioner.com\/askandy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/netcommissioner.com\/askandy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/netcommissioner.com\/askandy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/netcommissioner.com\/askandy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1258"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/netcommissioner.com\/askandy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1266,"href":"http:\/\/netcommissioner.com\/askandy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1258\/revisions\/1266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/netcommissioner.com\/askandy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/netcommissioner.com\/askandy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/netcommissioner.com\/askandy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}