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Army Sgt. Gene F. Clark was buried today at a cemetery outside of his hometown of Muncie, Indiana. On the way to the cemetery, his flag-draped coffin was driven past his childhood home.
Army Sgt. Edward J. O’Brien will be buried on July 2nd in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with full military honors.
Sgt. Clark and Sgt. O’Brien died just three weeks and ten miles from each other, each on cold battlefields near Unsan, North Korea, in November 1950. Their bodies were not recovered for decades.
Join us in remembering these gallant young men tonight, both of whom are finally home.
My father -- my beloved Dad -- was a son of privilege. He died, as did Tim Russert, so very suddenly -- in my Dad’s case on January 22, 2000. We know it was sudden, because my wonderful Mom and our beloved Madison discovered his crumpled body, just before dawn, next to the light switch he had apparently just turned on, very early in the morning.
My Dad died in the lovely rental house in Southern California my parents had moved into just a month earlier. To move there, my Dad had given up the dream house (for him) that he and my Mom had built after his retirement, on a barrier island in South Texas.
My Mom had never been happy there. During the construction, I would have hysterically funny calls with my Dad (I spoke with him every day) about the latest outrage with the construction. My parents were living in an apartment on the beach and Dad would say: "The electricians drilled holes in your mother’s tiles and she went out for a walk and I’m not sure if she is coming back."
You, whose forebodings have been all fulfilled,
You who have heard the bell, seen the boy stand
Holding the flimsy message in his hand
While through your heart the fiery question thrilled
"Wounded or killed, which, which?"--and it was "Killed--"
And in a kind of trance have read it, numb
But conscious that the dreaded hour was come,
No dream this dream wherewith your blood was chilled--
Oh brothers in calamity, unknown
Companions in the order of black loss,
Lift up your hearts, for your are not alone.
Last year, kid oakland drew from his knowledge, wisdom, experience and considerable energy to pull together a scholarship program that sent 19 people to Chicago for Yearly Kos. This year, Democracy for America is doing the same for Netroots Nation. DFA is accepting applications for the cost of registration and the hotel. There are already 93 applicants -- including our own Carnacki, Troutfishing, mataliandy, Terri, fbihop and betson08.
My Mom and I have a house on a pretty street, bordered by other modest 1950s suburban houses set back from the road, that links a bucolic parkway with the local hospital -- at rush hour, a lot of cars pass by. I was so proud to have my Jim Webb sign out there in 2006; I looked forward to putting out the "Obama for President" sign last winter, when it arrived.
My Mom, with whom I have lived since the awful year that my Dad died and I got divorced, said no. "Not until he’s the nominee," she said. And because it’s her house, too, I put the sign in a lower kitchen cabinet and waited.
You, whose forebodings have been all fulfilled,
You who have heard the bell, seen the boy stand
Holding the flimsy message in his hand
While through your heart the fiery question thrilled
"Wounded or killed, which, which?"--and it was "Killed--"
And in a kind of trance have read it, numb
But conscious that the dreaded hour was come,
No dream this dream wherewith your blood was chilled--
Oh brothers in calamity, unknown
Companions in the order of black loss,
Lift up your hearts, for your are not alone.
I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun,
I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags.
I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.
You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.
Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.
There is a terrible disease that runs in my family. It has to do with genetics. We do not know on what gene it rests, and it is so rare that members of my family are part of a study group to identify it. And because I know that insurance companies read blogs to find personal information like this, I have no intention of saying at which university the gene is being studied -- and I would never identify which members of my family have been identified as possibly carrying it.
How sad this all is, that my family cannot use the internet to help us find a cure. But the risks are too great. This is one more legacy of the Bush Administration.
But what I wanted to write about is getting the diagnosis, as Senator Kennedy has received in the past few days.
These hearts were woven of human joys and cares,
Washed marvellously with sorrow, swift to mirth.
The years had given them kindness. Dawn was theirs,
And sunset, and the colours of the earth.
These had seen movement, and heard music; known
Slumber and waking; loved; gone proudly friended;
Felt the quick stir of wonder; sat alone;
Touched flowers and furs and cheeks. All this is ended.
There are waters blown by changing winds to laughter
And lit by the rich skies, all day. And after,
Frost, with a gesture, stays the waves that dance
And wandering loveliness. He leaves a white
Unbroken glory, a gathered radiance,
A width, a shining peace, under the night.
We face the arduous days that lie before us in the warm courage of national unity; with the clear consciousness of seeking old and precious moral values; with the clean satisfaction that comes from the stern performance of duty by old and young alike. We aim at the assurance of a rounded--a permanent--national life.
~ Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Inaugural Address, March 4, 1933
The stern performance of duty by old and young alike.
If I read the temper of our people correctly, we now realize as we have never realized before our interdependence on each other; that we cannot merely take but we must give as well; that if we are to go forward, we must move as a trained and loyal army willing to sacrifice for the good of a common discipline, because without such discipline no progress can be made, no leadership becomes effective.
~ Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Inaugrual Address, March 4, 1933
Perhaps some day the sun will shine again,
And I shall see that still the skies are blue,
And feel once more I do not live in vain,
Although bereft of You.
Perhaps the golden meadows at my feet
Will make the sunny hours of spring seem gay,
And I shall find the white May-blossoms sweet,
Though You have passed away.
Perhaps the summer woods will shimmer bright,
And crimson roses once again be fair,
And autumn harvest fields a rich delight,
Although You are not there.
But though kind Time may many joys renew,
There is one greatest joy I shall not know
Again, because my heart for loss of You
Was broken, long ago.
When I graduated from college, I could count the number of my fellow female graduates at the academically challenging college from which we were graduating and who were going on to law school on one hand.
The college we attended had a history of sending its graduates to any graduate school they wished to attend, but, as I remember it, only one or two women from my class went from college directly to law school.
At that time, (1978) the law school I would eventually attend some seven years later was composed of perhaps 80 percent men. Even when I went (class of ‘88), men made up more than 60 percent of the class. And though I know that this sentiment was less universal then, I was told (by more than one of my male classmates) that I had no business being at the law school, because I was taking up a "seat" that rightfully belonged to someone who would be "supporting a family" -- that is, a male student.
I am sure that Hillary Clinton heard worse when she attended Yale Law School more than a decade earlier. And she was at the top of her class.
Dana Milbank of the Washington Post attended the funeral of a senior officer of the United States military the other day. He did so at the family's request. But he had to do so at a distance, because although the family of Lt. Col. Billy Hall had requested the presence of the press at his funeral at Arlington Cemetery, the government that ordered Lt. Col. Hall into war refused his family’s last request, and kept the press away.
