Google Logo for Veterans Day

I am impressed.

Google, who took a little heat for not providing a custom logo for Memorial Day, has come out with a logo for Veterans Day.

Good on you, guys.

Thanks also to the men and women of our Armed Forces, who give up more than we know in the defense of our country. Thanks especially to Dad, my uncle, and my father-in-law.

The NR Gallery has three shots, but this one is my favorite. In the shot is a Staff Sergeant who happened to be there when I was. I thanked him for his service.

Soldier at Conemaugh Gap

The Pennsylvania Military Museum is pretty small, about three rooms that contain equipment and details about the four ships named Pennsylvania: a ship of the line, an armored cruiser, a battleship, and an Ohio-class submarine. Accordingly, the price was quite reasonable: $4 per adult.

Outside the museum, a shrine larger than the museum itself is dedicated to those who served in both World Wars. The shrine, the open mall, and the church with its graveyard across the street made for some wonderful pictures.

The cool weather allowed us to have dinner outside at Duffy’s Boalsburg Tavern. The food was quite good, and I imagine Duffy’s will be frequently patronized by “Random Dan” and “Elle,” who recently moved to PA after Dan accepted a new job with a petroleum company.

Military pictures can be had at the NR Gallery; enjoy the others here:

It is a world of difference between where I’m teaching and Russia, just over 500 miles away from my location and 58 miles across the Bering Strait. Our freedom is rented, paid with the lives of volunteer and drafted soldiers for hundreds of years. It can be lost, either through invasion or through the surrender of our willingness to govern ourselves.

We citizens remember the living and the dead, some more closely than others. When you exercise your duty as a citizen, it may be appropriate to ask, is what I’m doing worthy of the soldiers who defended my rights? Or am I taking my rights and squandering them, ceding judgment to someone else who is more interested but not necessarily more qualified?

The Armed Forces’ blood, sweat, and treasure are the investment on our freedom. What we do with it is the return. Maximize your freedom ROI.

My first stop was the Hard Rock Cafe in Hollywood. I got there right at opening and got really good service. The waitress informed me that the Los Angeles location was temporarily shut down; the landlord had raised the rent, and the HRC balked. She recommended the Garlic Spinach burger, which was very good.

I drove into Hollywood, passing the Kodak Theater. About 15-20 characters were out in front, including Superman, Davy Jones from Pirates of the Caribbean, and Elmo. The Walk of Fame was a little disappointing. The sidewalk where the stars lay was well kept, but the normal concrete around the walk was not well kept. I didn’t bother getting out of the car.

Just for kicks, I plugged the “Hollywood Sign” into the Hertz NeverLost GPS system. It actually said it could not take me to the sign, but it would take me to a place where the sign could be viewed. It was true to its word, placing me in a neighborhood that was more or less dead on with the sign.

Next, I spent a couple hours at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. Flash photography was not permitted, so some pictures will be a little blurry. The Air Force One exhibit was quite cool, but the Presidential 707 was too cramped for my taste. No pictures were allowed in the plane itself. I have uploaded over 40 pictures to the gallery, including pictures of Mrs. Reagan’s dresses for the ladies. The library itself has some amazing natural scenery.

The trip wasn’t as fun as the San Francisco trip, but it was still pretty cool. The kids are going to get a couple of USS Ronald Reagan beanie babies. I tried to visit a restaurant that the NR Wife had seen on Rachel Ray, but it was closed when I got there.

Army veteran Ernest Johnson, 23, of Connecticut, said one of the things that peeved him before he turned 21 was that he couldn’t come home and drink a beer — even though he was old enough to serve in the armed services and die for his country.

Obama told Johnson he sympathized, but that setting the legal drinking age at 21 had helped reduce drunken driving incidents and should remain.

photo credit: mgsmith

The National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984 was a constitutional end-around, threatening the states into mandating a drinking age of 21 or lose 10% of federal highway funds. There is no provision in the Constitution that gives the federal government the right to set a minimum drinking age.

Unfortunately, some believe the federal government cannot relinquish a little bit of its power for the people that defend it.

BBC reports that the British army will likely move Prince Harry out of Afghanistan for fear that he would become a prized target for the Taliban.

A famous personality in the military doesn’t have to be a liability. General George S. Patton led the First U.S. Army Group, a phantom force, to confuse the Germans as to the location and time of the Allied invasion in World War II. Of course, the nature of Patton’s celebrity was quite different than Prince Harry’s, through no fault of the prince’s.

photo credit: psd

Expecting the media not to publish is like asking a snake not to bite. They were bought off with special access to the prince, but the secret was going to get out. The press’s function is completely at odds with the military’s need not to let the enemy know what it is doing. That’s not to say they aren’t culpable; their job is to accurately report what is going on with as little regard to their personal worldview as possible. Oops.

The prince is a high-value target because the world has seen how Britannia treats its dead own. Everything shuts down and everyone lines the streets in mourning. It is a strategic advantage to lend to the right enemy. The decision to move the prince is likely the right one. The uniform confers only a sense of individual anonymity to the enemy.

The Toledo Blade reports that Mayor Carty Finkbeiner (D) prevented a U.S. Marine company from Grand Rapids, Michigan, from staging training exercises in downtown Toledo.

Toledo police knew days in advance about their plans for a three-day exercise. Yet somehow the memo never made it to Mayor Finkbeiner, who ordered the Marines out yesterday afternoon just minutes before their buses were to arrive.

“The mayor asked them to leave because they frighten people,” said Brian Schwartz, the mayor’s spokesman.

The article reports that Marines of trained in downtown Toledo since 2004, the most recent being of May, 2006. Finkbeiner has been mayor since January 3, 2006, so this wouldn’t have been his first Marine excursion.

Sergeant Davis and other company leaders estimated the total cost of the aborted training exercise, including travel, at roughly $10,000.

Suggestion for new training exercise: deliver an invoice to the Toledo city hall.

Although slaying and robbing do not seem to be a work of love, and therefore a simple man thinks it not a Christian thing to do, yet in truth even this is a work of love. By way of illustration, a good physician, when a disease is so bad and so great that he has to cut off a hand, foot, ear, eye, or let it decay, does so, in order to save the body. Looked at from the point of view of the member that he cuts off, he seems a cruel and merciless man; but looked at from the point of view of the body, which he intends to save, it turns out that he is a fine and true man and does a work that is good and Christian, as far as it goes. In the same way, when I think of the office of soldier, how it punishes the wicked, slays the unjust, and creates so much misery, it seems an unchristian work and entirely contrary to Christian love; but if I think of how it protects the good and keeps and preserves house and home, wife and child, property and honor and peace, then it appears how precious and godly this work is, and I observe that it cuts off a leg or a hand, so that the whole body may not perish. For if the sword were not on guard to preserve peace, everything in the world must go to ruin because of lack of peace. Therefore, such a war is only a little, brief lack of peace that prevents an everlasting and immeasurable lack of peace, a small misfortune that prevents a great misfortune.

Self-protection is a proper cause of war and therefore all laws agree that self-defense shall go unpunished, and he who kills another in self-defense is innocent in everyone’s eyes. Again, when the people of Israel willed to smite the Canaanites without necessity, they were beaten (Numbers 14:45); and when Joseph and Azarias wanted to fight in order to win honor, they were beaten; and Amaziah, king of Judah, also desired to war against the king of Israel, but read, in 2 Kings 14:8, what happened to him; also King Ahab began to fight against the Syrians at Ramath, but lost and was destroyed (2 Kings 22:2); and the men of Ephraim would have devoured Jephthah and lost 42,000 men (Judges 12:6); and so on. You find that the losers were almost always those who started the war. The good king Josiah had to be slain because he began to fight against the king of Egypt, and had to make good the saying. “The Lord scattereth those who desire to war.” Therefore my people in the Harz have a proverb, “I have verily heard that he who smites is smitten.” Why so? Because God rules the world powerfully and leaves no wrong unpunished. He who does wrong has his punishment from God, as sure as he lives, unless he repents and gives compensation to his neighbor. I believe that Muenzer and his peasants would have to admit this.

Thank you, soldiers.

There’s a touch of irony in remembering “all gave some, some gave all” by sleeping in and not giving very much at all.

I get the Fourth of July and Labor Day “off” without it being a holiday necessarily, but at least I’m home then.

I can’t immediately recall anyone in my family who has actually died in combat. I have an uncle who is nearing retirement, a father and a father-in-law who were drafted and served their tour honorably. Come to think of it, I don’t know any friends of the family who died in combat either. Sgt. Bulmer is still in Baghdad. I guess that means if you know me, you have a pretty good chance of making it!

I hope you have a good Memorial Day, remembering our fallen Americans and treasuring the freedoms they died for.