memorial day

[Barry Donovan]

This one is for honoring those who died while serving.


We only have our individual stories, seeing someone's casket go by means nothing.

Life has more pain.
For me, and remembering my military time..the odds of life brings a black hole. Even my words disappear.
Friends gone, mentors, and leaders.

Something is remembering the military that has died around me, it emerges again in peculiar ways...as if to have time of the nobility protected.
Life never loses.

Honor those lost. It is about life.
Happy Memorial Day.

[Deaf Bob]

Put my coins on several family member's graves yesterday..
Sure were alot who served during WWII than any other
Ages were from very young (18) to very old (87)

I thank you all who are still alive..
I remember those who gave their all..
Several branches of my family tree stop at WWII...

[70chevyC-10]

Arlington National Cemetary -

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=...83B9&FORM=VIRE

[70chevyC-10]

Did you know it started in Robert E. Lee's front yard ?

[V12guy]

Did you know it started in Robert E. Lee's front yard ?

Sure enough did!

[Barry Donovan]

amazing story.
this is an example of the military I know.. how 'bout you?

viet nam veteran back from the dead honors fellow veterans


if my own tale comes back allowed, aloud.. I am certain to be light hearted.
I am another walking dead man.
20 years after, I am still surviving on death imminent version of social security.
no diagnosis, no doctors, no prognosis, medicine past or future... no in the line of duty formality written, no purple heart, no enemies.
I needed all of them.
I had one attempt at a hospital, and it was so outrageously wrong, I was forced to leave by law...I ended up in a mental hospital instead of physical.
I am laughing right now as I type this.

to almost sum it up , without mentioning the infamous left foot mutilation by a stampeded training base of the air force...
I was struck with electric to the point of a hole in my front tooth. pressure, airless environment, cooked, frozen, poisoned and overworked against rules all in one month...attacked by an enemy, stalked, property vandalized and threatened by a postal (crazy) coworker with a gun (he even went to jail).
all this took place in 30 days.
30 days after that I was a grotesque 115 pounds at 5 foot 9 with veins protruding in places not thought possible.
my teeth are all but gone today..still failing in chunks. I eat them while sleeping.
2 mysterious blisters in my eyeballs..



I could not even sign the life insurance papers my grandma was helping me with...after I finally knew I was going to die...that was 19 years ago.
I wandered off after false accusations at grandmas..
homeless shelter.
1998 or so.
in 2000 I inadvertantly busted my own brain hematoma sitting in the sun, goo came gushing out from behind my eye. I realized I had not seen colors properly due to pressure behind my left eye in almost 4 years.
short term and long term memory were nil.

homeless shelter tales, and 2 decades later...
here I am.


I did get an ambulance once, all my limbs went numb. Given emergency interveinus medicine .. for glaucoma.

Glaucoma?!

never had that happen before. Add it to the list of other things "not wrong" with me.

happy memorial day.

I might be lucky if this simply ends with an amputation of my lower left leg.

[70chevyC-10]

Sure enough did!

And Lee's wife was a step granddaughter of George Washington - - which is how they came to own the property.

[SuperBuickGuy]

not only thank you for your service, Barry, but thank you for you.

[silver_bullet]

Thanks to all who served and their families! We truly live in the land of the free, because of the brave, past and present!

[Barry Donovan]

not only thank you for your service, Barry, but thank you for you.

there is a turning point, and suddenly when nothing matters...
the nature of what you do next does.

it is there the heroes live forever...or die. Could keep living flesh for either outcome.

A spooky thing I did was find facebook, the last of normalcy before war stuff...26 years ago.
the babies and marriages now, remembering the red faced crushes, and boys growing fast.


I did encounter 2 military related suicides, and to know I had it worse than both of them...
I think I can do something, without the pretentious labels.

people that are like my past are still out there, they don't care its memorial day.
shameful abyss.. and there is to blame.

anyway, this weekend is about the fallen. I added suicide to it...and that is wrong if you don't know the facts, avoid the sympathy giving.
just like a mission that killed I guess.

I just knew I was better off dead. Headed for below zero in a 1.5 inch thick walled hut.. 23 feet by 7.9..
no medical, no aknowledgement at the V.A. .. that was 1998 for me. My head pain had that bubble still inside my skull. It went neurologic, could not ride a bike..and that metal plate was sucking the heat right out of my 115 pound body.

I layed down to sleep for the last time.
I joke of a 22000 year old dream. It is a paternal man, and it has my name.
that is what happened next.

You would have to kill me m***kers. No suicide for me.

They know my truth is coming, the witches, the thieves... and all else taking.
They better run while they can.

My craziness resorts to music. Without fail.

[Barry Donovan]

here is a cool story, the first black pilot
jesse leroy brown, korean war

I clearly remember a colonel yelling at me and a guy named scott in his own way.
a monster of ionization got the circuit between apu and battery.. jet powered monster was jumping around and smoke.
jp4 fuel having a bad day.

we did something exactly correct in split seconds.. at the same time, two ends of the plane.
battery was sparking ta my end, the apu was ready to kil the whole damn plane with a perfect bomb starter..110k pounds of fuel below it.

the hell we got:
who gives a shit about the god damn plane, run like hell next time.

Crew chiefs will be crew chiefs I guess.
pilots don't hesitate to call the plane a pile..expendable junk.

anyway, memorial day..
given the jesse brown story, I would have chopped his legs off.
witnessing gruesome beforehand is like EMT training, I saw in the story it was very cold, that would have helped from the get go.

[Deaf Bob]

First black airmen during WWII were the Tuskegee Airmen..

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_Airmen

[Barry Donovan]

I actually found chit-chat prior to one of those local memorial parades...
still not going, but that was interesting.
talking of rain, combining 2 towns to one parade ..

the last I remember of those was boston. I was very small.
Seems self declared, the smaller the towns get...I'll get over it some day.

in the cities, the odds are greater to find valor going for the parade ride.
I am a veteran, why would I want to see plain jane soldiers, I want to see the super stars.

I ponder a herd of fat bellied royal air guardsmen bouncing along to the 20 years of donuts...
the out of synch alone would drive me to yelling a relapse of my cadence loud enough to snap babies in carriages to attention.
no parade for me.

I knew I was satisfying a missing ancestry, they should be marching more like black gospel.