I am a simple every day American who loves his Country and the Freedoms it affords us all.
I am an ” American ” free to speak without fear, free to worship in my own way, free to stand for what I think right, free to oppose what I believe wrong, or free to choose those who shall govern my country.
This Heritage of Freedom I Pledge to Uphold
I will fight this fight with all that is within me and I hope that many of you will join with me in preserving the wonderful Heritage of Freedom given to us all by God and our Founding Fathers and all those Brave Souls who fought to keep us Free.
We must never forget those who made America the Greatest Nation the World has ever known. We must never forget all those who paid the ultimate price for our Freedom both at home and abroad. I Salute all of our Veterans and those Serving today.
I honor those who gave their Lives that we might be Free.
My name is Harold Estes, approaching 95 on December 13 of this year. People meeting me for the first time don’t believe my age because I remain wrinkle free and pretty much mentally alert.
I enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1934 and served proudly before, during and after WW II retiring as a Master Chief Bos’n Mate. Now I live in a “rest home” located on the western end of Pearl Harbor , allowing me to keep alive the memories of 23 years of service to my country.
One of the benefits of my age, perhaps the only one, is to speak my mind, blunt and direct even to the head man.
So here goes.
I am amazed, angry and determined not to see my country die before I do, but you seem hell bent not to grant me that wish.
I can’t figure out what country you are the president of. You fly around the world telling our friends and enemies despicable lies like: ” We’re no longer a Christian nation” ” America is arrogant”
– (Your wife even announced to the world,” America is mean- spirited. ” Please tell her to try preaching that nonsense to 23 generations of our war dead buried all over the globe who died for no other reason than to free a whole lot of strangers from tyranny and hopelessness.)
I’d say shame on the both of you, but I don’t think you like America, nor do I see an ounce of gratefulness in anything you do, for the obvious gifts this country has given you.
To be without shame or gratefulness is a dangerous thing for a man sitting in the White House.
After 9/11 you said,” America hasn’t lived up to her ideals.”
Which ones did you mean? Was it the notion of personal liberty that 11,000 farmers and shopkeepers died for to win independence from the British? Or maybe the ideal that no man should be a slave to another man, that 500,000 men died for in the Civil War? I hope you didn’t mean the ideal 470,000 fathers, brothers, husbands, and a lot of fellas I knew personally died for in WWII, because we felt real strongly about not letting any nation push us around, because we stand for freedom.
I don’t think you mean the ideal that says equality is better than discrimination. You know the one that a whole lot of white people understood when they helped to get you elected.
Take a little advice from a very old geezer, young man.
Shape up and start acting like an American. If you don’t, I’ll do what I can to see you get shipped out of that fancy rental on Pennsylvania Avenue . You were elected to lead not to bow, apologize and kiss the hands of murderers and corrupt leaders who still treat their people like slaves.
And just who do you think you are telling the American people not to jump to conclusions and condemn that Muslim major who killed 13 of his fellow soldiers and wounded dozens more. You mean you don’t want us to do what you did when that white cop used force to subdue that black college professor in Massachusetts , who was putting up a fight? You don’t mind offending the police calling them stupid but you don’t want us to offend Muslim fanatics by calling them what they are, terrorists.
One more thing. I realize you never served in the military and never had to defend your country with your life, but you’re the Commander-in-Chief now, son. Do your job. When your battle-hardened field General asks you for 40,000 more troops to complete the mission, give them to him. But if you’re not in this fight to win, then get out. The life of one American soldier is not worth the best political strategy you’re thinking of.
You could be our greatest president because you face the greatest challenge ever presented to any president. You’re not going to restore American greatness by bringing back our bloated economy. That’s not our greatest threat. Losing the heart and soul of who we are as Americans is our big fight now. And I sure as hell don’t want to think my president is the enemy in this final battle…
When a 95 year old Hero of “The Greatest Generation” Stands Up and Speaks Out like this, I think we owe it to him to share his words with as many Americans as we can.
Don’t Let The Liberals Re-Write This History!
My Fellow American Patriots and Friends. I would like to Honor this Wonderful Veteran in every way I can and hope that everyone will re-post his letter in emails and anywhere else you think this man would get the recognition he deserves. Please Tweet this Post as often as you like because the message is clear and present to all that is important to America.
Good Morning my Fellow American Patriots and Friends. I would like to Honor this Wonderful Veteran in every way I can and hope that everyone will re-post his letter in emails and anywhere else you think this man would get the recognition he deserves. Please Tweet this Post as often as you like because the message is clear and present to all that is important to America.
Here is the Letter a 95 Year Old Pearl Harbor Survivor wrote to President Obama
My name is Harold Estes, approaching 95 on December 13 of this year. People meeting me for the first time don’t believe my age because I remain wrinkle free and pretty much mentally alert.
I enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1934 and served proudly before, during and after WW II retiring as a Master Chief Bos’n Mate. Now I live in a “rest home” located on the western end of Pearl Harbor , allowing me to keep alive the memories of 23 years of service to my country.
One of the benefits of my age, perhaps the only one, is to speak my mind, blunt and direct even to the head man.
So here goes.
I am amazed, angry and determined not to see my country die before I do, but you seem hell bent not to grant me that wish.
I can’t figure out what country you are the president of. You fly around the world telling our friends and enemies despicable lies like:
– (Your wife even announced to the world,” America is mean- spirited. ” Please tell her to try preaching that nonsense to 23 generations of our war dead buried all over the globe who died for no other reason than to free a whole lot of strangers from tyranny and hopelessness.)
I’d say shame on the both of you, but I don’t think you like America, nor do I see an ounce of gratefulness in anything you do, for the obvious gifts this country has given you. To be without shame or gratefulness is a dangerous thing for a man sitting in the White House.
After 9/11 you said,” America hasn’t lived up to her ideals.”
Which ones did you mean? Was it the notion of personal liberty that 11,000 farmers and shopkeepers died for to win independence from the British? Or maybe the ideal that no man should be a slave to another man, that 500,000 men died for in the Civil War? I hope you didn’t mean the ideal 470,000 fathers, brothers, husbands, and a lot of fellas I knew personally died for in WWII, because we felt real strongly about not letting any nation push us around, because we stand for freedom.
I don’t think you mean the ideal that says equality is better than discrimination. You know the one that a whole lot of white people understood when they helped to get you elected.
Take a little advice from a very old geezer, young man.
Shape up and start acting like an American. If you don’t, I’ll do what I can to see you get shipped out of that fancy rental on Pennsylvania Avenue . You were elected to lead not to bow, apologize and kiss the hands of murderers and corrupt leaders who still treat their people like slaves.
And just who do you think you are telling the American people not to jump to conclusions and condemn that Muslim major who killed 13 of his fellow soldiers and wounded dozens more. You mean you don’t want us to do what you did when that white cop used force to subdue that black college professor in Massachusetts , who was putting up a fight? You don’t mind offending the police calling them stupid but you don’t want us to offend Muslim fanatics by calling them what they are, terrorists.
One more thing. I realize you never served in the military and never had to defend your country with your life, but you’re the Commander-in-Chief now, son. Do your job. When your battle-hardened field General asks you for 40,000 more troops to complete the mission, give them to him. But if you’re not in this fight to win, then get out. The life of one American soldier is not worth the best political strategy you’re thinking of.
You could be our greatest president because you face the greatest challenge ever presented to any president. You’re not going to restore American greatness by bringing back our bloated economy. That’s not our greatest threat. Losing the heart and soul of who we are as Americans is our big fight now. And I sure as hell don’t want to think my president is the enemy in this final battle…
When a 95 year old Hero of “The Greatest Generation” Stands Up and Speaks Out like this, I think we owe it to him to share his words with as many Americans as we can.
Blue Fridays. Very soon, you will see a great many people wearing blue every Friday. The reason? Americans who support our troops used to be called the ‘silent majority.’ We are no longer silent, and are voicing our love for God, country and home in record breaking numbers. We are not organized, boisterous or overbearing.
Many Americans, like you, me and all our friends, simply want to recognize that the vast majority of America supports our troops. Our idea of showing solidarity and support for our troops with dignity and respect starts this Friday — and continues each and every Friday until the troops all come home, sending a deafening message that every red-blooded American who supports our men and women afar, will wear something blue. By word of mouth, press, TV — let’s make the United States on every Friday a sea of blue much like a homecoming football game in the bleachers. If every one of us who loves this country will share this with acquaintances, coworkers, friends, and family, it will not be long before the USA is covered in BLUE and it will let our troops know the once ‘silent’ majority is on their side more than ever. The first thing a soldier says when asked ‘What can we do to make things better for you?’ is: ‘We need your support and your prayers.’ Let’s get the word out and lead with class and dignity, by example, and wear something blue every Friday.
When 2nd Lt. James Cathey’s body arrived at the R eno Airport , Marines climbed into the cargo hold of the plane and draped the flag over his casket as passengers watched the family gather on the tarmac. During the arrival of another Marine’s casket last year at Denver International Airport , Major Steve Beck described the scene as so powerful: ‘See the people in the windows? They sat right there in the plane, watching those Marines. You gotta wonder what’s going through their minds, knowing that they’re on the plane that brought him home,’ he said. ‘They will remember being on that plane for the rest of their lives. They’re going to remember bringing that Marine home. And they should.’
Second Place Todd Heisler, The Rocky Mountain News The night before the burial of her husband’s body, Katherine Cathey refused to leave the casket, asking to sleep next to his body for the last time. The Marines made a bed for her, tucking in the sheets below the flag. Before she fell asleep, she opened her laptop computer and played songs that reminded her of ‘Cat,’ and one of the Marines asked if she wanted them to continue standing watch as she slept. ‘I think it would be kind of nice if you kept doing it,’ she said. ‘I think that’s what he would have wanted’.
And the one that really tightens MY throat:
3rd Place –
“Son, a Grateful Nation……..”
Blue Fridays. Very soon, you will see a great many people wearing blue every Friday. The reason? Americans who support our troops used to be called the ‘silent majority.’ We are no longer silent, and are voicing our love for God, country and home in record breaking numbers. We are not organized, boisterous or overbearing.
Many Americans, like you, me and all our friends, simply want to recognize that the vast majority of America supports our troops. Our idea of showing solidarity and support for our troops with dignity and respect starts this Friday — and continues each and every Friday until the troops all come home, sending a deafening message that every red-blooded American who supports our men and women afar, will wear something blue. By word of mouth, press, TV — let’s make the United States on every Friday a sea of blue much like a homecoming football game in the bleachers. If every one of us who loves this country will share this with acquaintances, coworkers, friends, and family, it will not be long before the USA is covered in BLUE and it will let our troops know the once ‘silent’ majority is on their side more than ever. The first thing a soldier says when asked ‘What can we do to make things better for you?’ is: ‘We need your support and your prayers.’ Let’s get the word out and lead with class and dignity, by example, and wear something blue every Friday.
Only two defining forces have ever offered to die for you:
1. Jesus Christ
2. The American G. I.
One Died for your Soul, the other for your Freedom.
I apologize for the use of God‘s Name being taken in Vain
ATTENTION!
To ALL those whining, panty-waisted, pathetic Citizens, it’s time for a little refresher course on exactly why we Americans occasionally have to fight wars to keep this nation great.
See if you can tear yourself away from your “reality” TV and Starbucks for a minute, pull your head out of your ass — and LISTEN UP!!
Millions of these warped misled sons-of-bitches are plotting, as we speak, to destroy our country and our way of life any way they can. Some of them are here among us now.
They don’t want to convert you and don’t want to rule you. They believe you are a vile infestation of Allah’s paradise. They don’t give a shit how “progressive” you are, how peace-loving you are, or how much you sympathize with their cause.
They want your ass dead, and they think it is God’s will for them to do it.
Some think if we give them a hug or listen to them, then they’ll like us, and if you agree - Then you are a pathetic dumb ass!
If they manage to get their hands on a nuke,chemical agents, or even some anthrax — you will wish to God we had hunted them down and killed THEM while we had the chance.
How many more Americans must be beheaded? You’ve fallen asleep AGAIN – get your head out of your ass! You may never get another chance!
NOW GET OFF YOUR SORRY ASS And pass this on to any and every person you give a damn about – if you ever gave a damn about anything!
Countless men and women get up everyday and have done so for years throughout the history of this great Country to march through snow, mud, jungle, sand and every situation that they are required to because they gave an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America. They serve as cooks, lawyers, technicians, mechanics, pilots, police, and any number of other duties they are asked to perform. All volunteers, all Patriots. There is an element that can be construed as treasonous going on within our Country today. Our military is the strongest in the world, however it is being systematically weakened by a cancer called liberalism. The progressives inch ever closer to their goal of totalitarianism. I have never seen a tree rot from the outside to the inside, rather, the rot occurs on the inside where no-one sees it until a storm comes and takes the weakened tree down. As goes our military, so goes our Country.
MOSCOW – Less than two weeks before presidential elections, Vladimir Putin laid out his ambitious plans Monday for modernizing and strengthening Russia’s defense forces over the next decade, in the face of a threatening world and a powerful United States.“For Russia to feel secure and for our partners to listen carefully to what our country has to say,” he wrote, Moscow must spend about $775 billion by 2022 for new armaments and a more professional military.
Two weeks before Russia holds its presidential election, hundreds of motorists circled central Moscow to demand that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin allow free elections. Saturday night, pro-Putin motorists hit the streets. (Feb. 19)
“We see zones of instability and artificially maintained, managed chaos emerging,” the current Russian prime minister wrote in a lengthy article that was one of a series of presidential campaign platforms. “Furthermore, we see how some are purposefully provoking such conflicts in the immediate vicinity of Russia’s borders.”
He said Russia’s military response to the U.S. missile defense shield would be “effective and asymmetrical.”
The promise to increase defense spending and modernize Russia’s forces is not new. On Monday, Putin said Russia will put more than 400 intercontinental ballistic missiles into service over the next 10 years, as well as eight nuclear submarines, 600 advanced aircraft, 2,300 tanks and an array of other equipment. Analysts, on the left and right, were skeptical that he can accomplish such a buildup.
China has announced that it will boost military spending by 11.2 per cent this year, in a move likely to cause concern about Beijing’srapid military build-up and stoke regional tensions.The increase was announced on Sunday by Li Zhaoxing, the spokesman for China’s parliament, and will bring official spending on the People’s Liberation Armyto 670.3bn yuan ($110bn) for 2012, after a 12.7 per cent increase last year and a nearly consistent series of double-digit rises across two decades.
“China’s limited military power is for the sake of preserving national sovereignty, security, and territorial integrity“- Li Zhaoxing,
Chinese parliamentary spokesman
China’s public budget is widely thought by foreign experts to undercount its real spending on military modernisation, which has unnerved Asian neighbours and drawn repeated calls from the US for China to share more about its intentions.
Li said the world has nothing to fear, and the money spent on the PLA paled in comparison with the Pentagon’s outlays.
“You can see that we have 1.3 billion people with a large land areas and a long coastline, but our outlays on defence are quite low compared to other major countries,” Li said before the annual session of the National People’s Congress, the Communist Party-controlled legislature that will approve the budget.
“China’s limited military power is for the sake of preserving national sovereignty, security, and territorial integrity,” said Li, a former foreign minister. “Fundamentally, it constitutes no threat to other countries.”
Budget ‘tops $100bn’
Asian neighbours have been nervous about Beijing’s expanding military, and this latest double-digit rise could reinforce worries in Japan, India and Southeast Asian nations.
“China’s military capabilities plus its creeping assertiveness, its new kind of aggressiveness in the region, I think those are causes for concern,” Richard Bitzinger, a military expert and senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, told Al Jazeera.
“I think what’s most significant, for me at least, is the fact that they finally topped $100bn in defence spending.”
China’s growing military capability has been a growing concern among Asian countries in recent years
Bitzinger said the ”ultimate cumulative effect is that it has basically propelled the Chinese into the second largest defence spender in the world, behind the United States”.
Obama has sought to reassure Asian allies that the US will stay a key player in the area, and the Pentagon has said it will “rebalance toward the Asia-Pacific region”.
“China shares its land border with 14 countries; it used to make sense that a country in such a position maintains strong conventional forces,” said Kazuya Sakamoto, a professor at Osaka University in Japan who researches international security.
“But in this nuclear age, it does not really make sense China, a nuclear-armed country, continues to build up its military at such a pace.”
Obama’s proposed budget for the fiscal year of 2013 calls for a Pentagon base budget of $525.4bn, about $5.1bn less than approved for 2012.
China’s defence spending was 1.28 per cent of its gross domestic product in 2011, while the US and Britain both devoted more then two per cent of their economies to their military forces, Li, the Chinese parliament spokesman, said.
Japan and China have disputed over islands each claims in the East China Sea; Vietnam, the Philippines and other nations have challenged Beijing over claims to swathes of the South China Sea that could be rich in oil and gas.
There are 58,267 names now listed on that polished black wall, including those added in 2010.
The names are arranged in the order in which they were taken from us by date, and within each date, the names are alphabetized. It is hard to believe it is 36 years since the last casualties.
Beginning at the apex on panel 1E and going out to the end of the East wall, appearing to recede into the earth (numbered 70E – May 25, 1968), then resuming at the end of the West wall, as the wall emerges from the earth (numbered 70W – continuing May 25, 1968) and ending with a date in 1975.Thus, the war’s beginning and end meet. The war is complete, coming full circle, yet broken by the earth that bounds the angle’s open side and contained within the earth itself. The first known casualty was Richard B. Fitzgibbon, of North Weymouth , Mass. Listed by the U.S. Department of Defense as having been killed on June 8, 1956. His name is listed on the Wall with that of his son, Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Richard B. Fitzgibbon III, who was killed on Sept. 7, 1965.
There are three sets of fathers and sons on the Wall.
West Virginia had the highest casualty rate per capita in the nation.There are 711 West Virginians on the Wall.
The Marines of Morenci – They led some of the scrappiest high school football and basketball teams that the little Arizona copper town of Morenci (pop. 5,058) had ever known and cheered. They enjoyed roaring beer busts. In quieter moments, they rode horses along the Coronado Trail, stalked deer in the Apache National Forest . And in the patriotic camaraderie typical of Morenci’s mining families, the nine graduates of Morenci High enlisted as a group in the Marine Corps.
Their service began on Independence Day, 1966. Only 3 returned home.
The Buddies of Midvale – LeRoy Tafoya, Jimmy Martinez, & Tom Gonzales were all boyhood friends and lived on three consecutive streets in Midvale, Utah on Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Avenues. They lived only a few yards apart. They played ball at the adjacent sandlot ball field. And they all went to Vietnam .
In a span of 16 dark days in late 1967, all three would be killed. LeRoy was killed on Wednesday, Nov. 22, the fourth anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s assassination.
Jimmy died less than 24 hours later on Thanksgiving Day. Tom was shot dead assaulting the enemy on December 7, Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day.
The most casualty deaths for a single day was on January 31, 1968 ~ 245 deaths.
The most casualty deaths for a single month was May 1968 – 2,415 casualties were incurred.
For most Americans who read this, they will only see the numbers that the Vietnam War created. To those of us who survived the war, and to the families of those who did not, we see the faces, we feel the pain that these numbers created.We are, until we too pass away, haunted with these numbers, because they were our friends, fathers, husbands, wives, sons and daughters.
