Theodore's World

Memorial Day, originally called Decoration Day, is a day of remembrance for those who have died in our nation’s service. Since some may be traveling to spend this weekend with special remembrance to someone that gave their all for our country. I wanted to Pay a Tribute today for our brave military and those that paid the highest price for our freedom. There will be other posts throughout the weekend as a Tribute to American’s Heroe’s for Memorial Day.

The music in the video is ” Some Gave All” by Billy Ray Cyrus. It is an amazing song.

Members of Carry the Flame, a group largely made up of bikers who are Vietnam veterans, ride through New Mexico to the Rolling Thunder Memorial Day rally at the National Mall in Washington.

If you travel on one of our nation’s Interstates these last few days before Memorial Day, you might encounter an unusual sight: bikers by the dozens stretched half a mile down the highway, their motorcycles flying military banners and spewing exhaust.
They are members of Rolling Thunder, a nationwide network of veterans and their supporters. Their destination: Rolling Thunder Memorial Day rally on the National Mall in Washington.
Rolling Thunder, which has thousands of members, was founded in 1987 when some Vietnam veterans and advocates for P.O.W.’s and M.I.A.’s befriended one another on the mall.
Ray Manzo of Hoboken, N.J., now a former marine, suggested motorcycles. The idea grabbed them. Masses of bikes descending on Washington would literally sound like Rolling Thunder, the code name for the bombing campaign over North Vietnam.
In its first year, the Memorial Day rally drew 2,500 bikers. Now, nearly two decades later, hundreds of thousands of bikers join in.

“When you put 200,000 bikes together,” said Michael DePaulo, a Vietnam veteran from Berkley, Mass., who helps organize and run the rally, “it sounds like a B-52 strike.”

Custom-Painted FLHX Street Glide Harley-Davidson of Washington donated to Rolling Thunder, Inc.® in honor of the 20th anniversary. The bike is currently on display at Harley-Davidson of Washington.

Until They ALL Come Home
Until they all come home
We watch and wait
Young and old, black and white
So far away, they’re sent to fight
Until they all come home
We wear our ribbons to show our pride
And let them know we are on their side
Until they all come home
We pray for peace
Throughout the land
Protect them all, on sea and sand
Until they all come home
By James Withrow
Rolling Thunder

Wild Thing’s comment……..
God bless Rolling Thunder!
….Please visit my POW MIA page at my website
…You are also invited to visit my Tribute to Vietnam Veterans page.

Minority Leader John Boehner, of Ohio, choked back sobs as he invoked the al Qaeda terrorist network’s 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.

“After 3,000 of our fellow citizens died, when are we going to stand up and take them on?” he said. “When are we going to defeat them? Ladies and gentlemen, let me tell you, if we don’t do it now, and if we don’t have the courage to defeat this enemy, we will long, long regret it.”

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Congress sent a $120 billion war spending bill to the White House late Thursday, abandoning a call for most U.S. troops to leave Iraq after an earlier veto by President Bush.
The bill replaces the earlier goal of withdrawing U.S. combat troops by March 2008 with a series of political benchmarks for Iraqi leaders to meet in order to receive continued American support.
But the move sharply split the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives, where 140 members — including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — voted against the plan.
In the Senate, leading Democratic presidential contenders Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama were among the 14 members who opposed the measure.
The bill also includes the first increase in the federal minimum wage since 1997, bringing it up $2.10 an hour to $7.25. And it provides about $20 billion in domestic spending, ranging from money for veterans’ health care and hurricane reconstruction to drought relief for farmers and money for state-run children’s health insurance programs.
Democratic presidential hopeful and former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina harshly criticized the legislation.

“Washington failed America today when Congress surrendered to the president’s demand for another blank check that prolongs the war in Iraq,” Edwards said in a statement.

“Congress should immediately use its funding power to cap troop levels in Iraq at 100,000, stop the ongoing surge and force an immediate drawdown of 40,000 to 50,000 troops, followed by a complete withdrawal in about a year.”

ANZER KASERNE, Germany — Actor and musician Gary Sinise prepares to fire a M-24 sniper rifle with Soldiers of 1st Battalion, 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne) during a firepower demonstration here May 11. Sinise is visiting the Stuttgart area with his band, the Lt. Dan Band, as part of a USO tour to perform concerts for service members stationed overseas. (Department of Defense photo by Navy Lt. Cmdr. Corey Barker)

In this picture supplied by the USO, US actor Gary Sinise (R) listens to US Army CW 4 Leif Neely (L) of Woodbridge, Virginia, tell about how he was wounded while flying his Kiowa Warrior helicopter on a mission over Mosul, Iraq during a visit by Sinise to the hospital at Forward Operating Base Mazur, Iraq, 20 May 2007. Sinise, famous for his role as Lt. Dan in the movie Forrest Gump and currently starring in the TV series CSI:NY, is on a USO-sponsored meet-and-greet tour to boost morale among US forces in the area.

US Actor Gary Sinise, famous for his role as Lt. Dan in the movie Forrest Gump and currently starring in the TV series CSI:NY, sits in a US Army Apache helicopter during a tour of the flight line, at Contingency Operating Base Speicher, Iraq, 21 May 2007. Sinise is on a USO-sponsored meet-and-greet tour to boost morale among US forces in the area.

Actor Gary Sinise with the staff of the Navy Medical Hospital at Camp Arifjan.

Wild Thing’s comment………..
Gary is a friend of mine. I met him years ago when we lived in Malibu, Calif. and working in films. He is a truly wonderful man and sincere in what he does. He truly supports the troops. He has traveled to Iraq and all over the world to entertain and meet the troops and thank them in person. I lost count how many times he has been to Iraq, but it has been many times.
I am honored to know him and grateful for all he does for our troops to let them know how thankful we all are to them for all they do for us and for America and for the world.

Capt. James B. McGovern Jr. of Elizabeth, N.J., poses on the wing of his World War II fighter plane at an unknown location in this undated file photo provided by his family. Fifty-three years after he was shot down on a desperate cargo-delivery flight over Vietnam, a legendary pilot and soldier-of-fortune known as ‘Earthquake McGoon’ is to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery on Thursday. (AP Photo/McGovern family photo via the Home News Tribune, File)

Famed flier to be buried at Arlington
NEW YORK
Fifty-three years after he was shot down on a desperate cargo-delivery flight over Vietnam, a legendary pilot and soldier of fortune known as Earthquake McGoon will be buried Thursday at Arlington National Cemetery.
The burial plan was announced by the Pentagon on Wednesday.

Earthquake McGoon, whose real name was James B. McGovern Jr., was one of the first two Americans killed in the Vietnam conflict. His remains were recovered from an unmarked grave in a remote northern Laos village in 2002 and identified last year by forensic experts at the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command’s laboratory at Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii.

But a family fued among relatives in New Jersey, in part about burial plans, stalled his interment. Meanwhile, former colleagues of McGovern in World War II and Indochina tried to arrange an Arlington burial to coincide with a planned “final reunion” of pilots who flew in China and French Indochina with Civil Air Transport, a postwar airline secretly owned by the CIA.

McGovern, who weighed 260 pounds and was nicknamed after a hulking character in the hillbilly comic strip “Li’l Abner,” was killed May 6, 1954, while air-dropping an artillery piece to the trapped French garrison at Dien Bien Phu. His C-119 “Flying Boxcar” cargo plane, crippled by anti-aircraft fire, continued 75 miles into Laos and crashed on a hillside.

The crash also killed his co-pilot, Wallace Buford, and a French flight engineer. Three other French Legionnaires survived the crash and were captured by communist troops, but one died later. The remains of Buford, of Kansas City, Mo., were never found.

Dien Bien Phu fell to Ho Chi Minh’s communist-led revolutionary army the next day, dooming the French colonial regime in Indochina.

McGovern and Buford, both civilians at the time, were the first two Americans killed in fighting in Vietnam, where ensuing warfare would kill nearly 60,000 Americans and more than a million Vietnamese over the next two decades.

Earthquake McGoon was a flamboyant figure who became famous in the early 1950s for his escapades. As a member of an Air Force squadron descended from the famed Flying Tigers, he shot down four Japanese planes and destroyed others on the ground.

His adventures included being captured by communist Chinese troops who freed him because he called them “liars” for not letting him go; winning a clutch of dancing girls in a poker game; and setting free a group of Japanese POWs on a beach rather than follow orders to “dump cargo” after he developed engine trouble.

Possible graves were spotted in the Laotian village of Ban Sot in the late 1990s by an analyst for the Hawaii-based POW/MIA Accounting Command, which searches for missing Americans in Asia and elsewhere.
In 2002, a JPAC team led by anthropologist Peter Miller found one of the graves contained remains that were later identified by forensic experts as those of McGovern.

Wild Thing’s comment……….
From 1946 to 1976, Civil Air Transport (CAT) and Air America served alongside U.S. and allied intelligence agents and military personnel in the Far East, often in dangerous combat and combat support roles. Behind a shroud of strict secrecy, many Air America personnel were unaware that they were “shadow people” in counterinsurgency operations. Some 87 of them were killed in action in China, Korea, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and elsewhere.
Though many of those Asian countries eventually fell to the communists, the contributions of Air America personnel to the cause of freedom remain unparalleled in aviation history. CAT and Air America personnel were the first Americans in China and Korea and, after the U.S. military had withdrawn from Vietnam, Air America pilots risked their lives to evacuate the last Americans. Air America — “First in, last out.”
This official website of Air America and CAT tells the 30-year story of these great Americans–shadow people, largely unknown to Americans and the world. They helped bring the Cold War to an end.
Click HERE to go to their website to read about Earthquke McGovern and Buford disappeared while flying a C-119

Tucker Carlson showon MSNBC, Tucker interviewed left-wing Dem congressman Jim Moran of Virginia, grilling him regarding the Dems’ cave-in on the war, passing a bill funding continuing operations without imposing any timelines.
MSNBC HOST CARLSON: Can’t you see why people who aren’t sophisticated in the way of Washington might be confused when the Speaker of the House comes out and says this is the deal we’ve struck and by the way I don’t support it? This is the deal that I struck, I did, Nancy Pelosi, along with Harry Reid and the anti-war left. This is our deal, but I’m not for it? Isn’t that a little confusing?
REP. JAMES MORAN [D-VA]: Uh, I, well, uh, it’s certainly in the way and the context in which you put it I can understand why people might be confused, but the reality is that it was the best that we could get.
CLICK HERE to check out the VIDEO.….it is priceless!

Wild Thing’s comment………
The day of the life-time politician should be over. Moran and Pelosi, Reid and the whole bunch are a great example of why.

US issues nuclear warning to Iran as armada enters Gulf

USS Nimitz (CVN 68), the USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD 6) and the USS John C. Stennis (CVN 74) in the Gulf of Oman.

USS John C. Stennis (CVN 74), USS Nimitz (CVN 68), and USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD 6) strike groups

Guided-missile destroyer USS O’Kane (DDG 77) steams through the Gulf of Oman while an SH-60H Seahawk, from the Eightballers of Helicopter Anti-Submarine Squadron (HS) 8, moves into position

US issues nuclear warning to Iran as armada enters Gulf
afp.com
The United States threatened new UN sanctions to punish Iran’s nuclear drive as it ratcheted up tensions with the biggest display of naval power in the Gulf in years.
A bristling US armada led by two aircraft carriers steamed into waters near Iran for exercises Wednesday, hours before UN watchdogs said Iran was expanding its uranium enrichment program in defiance of international sanctions.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said that Iran continues to enrich uranium — which can provide fuel for civilian reactors but also make nuclear bombs.
That prompted warnings from US officials of further UN punishment unless Iran curtails its nuclear development — which the Islamic republic insists is devoted to civilian energy.

“Iran is once again thumbing its nose at the international community,” US Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns said, even as US and Iranian envoys prepared for historic talks on Iraqi security in Baghdad next Monday.

Iran denied obstructing IAEA inspections, but White House national security spokesman Gordon Johndroe said the report by the United Nations atomic watchdog was damning.

The IAEA assessment “is a laundry list of Iran’s continued defiance of the international community and shows that Iran’s leaders are only furthering the isolation of the Iranian people,” he said.

The US Navy said the Gulf exercises were not directed at Iran but Mustafa Alani, senior analyst with the UAE-based Gulf Research Center, said it was no coincidence the powerful flotilla arrived on the day of the IAEA report.

Michael Chertoff, Homeland Security Secretary:” I understand there are some people who expect anything other than capital punishment is an amnesty. ”

Wild Thing’s comment……..
What colossal arrogance! Chertoff and all the others prove to all of us they do not represent the U.S.A. but Mexico. Well, they don’t represent me. I am ashamed to be associated with them.
Chertoff (brought to prominence by none other than Rudy Giuliani, then was appropriated by GHWB, embraced by the Clintonistas, and then catapulted to his current position by GWB.
Want to know something really “funny”? He is being floated as a possible replacement for Alberto Gonzales, should Gonzales get the axe.
I despise it when the politicians say you can’t round up 12 million people and just deport them.I wish someone would pose the question…….
I would ask then, “What would you do if these 12 million were al queda?”
Would you give them amnesty also? Sheesh!

Some US Muslims say suicide attacks OK
WASHINGTON …fopr complete article
One in four younger U.S. Muslims said in a poll that suicide bombings to defend their religion are acceptable at least in some circumstances, though most Muslim Americans overwhelmingly reject the tactic and are critical of Islamic extremism and al-Qaida.
The survey by the Pew Research Center, one of the most exhaustive ever of the country’s Muslims, revealed a community that in many ways blends comfortably into society. Its largely mainstream members express nearly as much happiness with their lives and communities as the general public does, show a broad willingness to adopt American customs, and have income and education levels similar to others in the U.S.
Even so, the survey revealed noteworthy pockets of discontent.
While nearly 80 percent of U.S. Muslims say suicide bombings of civilians to defend Islam can not be justified, 13 percent say they can be, at least rarely.
That sentiment is strongest among those younger than 30. Two percent of them say it can often be justified, 13 percent say sometimes and 11 percent say rarely.

“It is a hair-raising number,” said Radwan Masmoudi, president of the Washington-based Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy, which promotes the compatibility of Islam with democracy.

He said most supporters of the attacks likely assumed the context was a fight against occupation — a term Muslims often use to describe the conflict with Israel.

U.S. Muslims have growing Internet and television access to extreme ideologies, he said, adding: “People, especially younger people, are susceptible to these ideas.”

Federal officials have warned that the U.S. must be on guard against homegrown terrorism, as the British suffered with the London transit bombings of 2005.
Even so, U.S. Muslims are far less accepting of suicide attacks than Muslims in many other nations. In surveys Pew conducted last year, support in some Muslim countries exceeded 50 percent, while it was considered justifiable by about one in four Muslims in Britain and Spain, and one in three in France.

“We have crazies just like other faiths have them,” said Eide Alawan, who directs interfaith outreach at the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn, Mich., one of the nation’s largest mosques. He said killing innocent people contradicts Islam.

Andrew Kohut, Pew director, said in an interview that support for the attacks represented “one of the few trouble spots” in the survey.
At a later news conference, he said much of that support could be attributed to age because the findings were consistent with numerous other surveys showing young people more inclined to violence and to support wars.

The poll briefly describes the rationales for and against “suicide bombing and other forms of violence against civilian targets” and then asks, “Do you personally feel that this kind of violence is often justified to defend Islam, sometimes justified, rarely justified, or never justified?”

The question did not specify where a suicide attack might occur, who might carry it out or what was meant by using a bombing to “defend Islam.”
In other findings:
– Only 5 percent of U.S. Muslims expressed favorable views of the terrorist group al-Qaida, though about a fourth did not express an opinion.
– Six in 10 said they are concerned about a rise in Islamic extremism in the U.S., while three in four expressed similar worries about extremism around the world.
– Yet only one in four consider the U.S. war on terrorism a sincere attempt to curtail international terror. Only 40 percent said they believe Arab men carried out the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
– By six to one, they say the U.S. was wrong to invade Iraq, while a third say the same about Afghanistan — far deeper than the opposition expressed by the general U.S. public.
– Just over half said it has been harder being a U.S. Muslim since the 9/11 attacks, especially the better educated, higher income, more religious and young. Nearly a third of those who flew in the past year say they underwent extra screening because they are Muslim.
The survey estimates there are roughly 2.35 million Muslim Americans. It found that among adults, two-thirds are from abroad while a fifth are U.S.-born blacks.

Wild Thing’s comment………
We already know the barbarians are already within the gates. So this is just a glimpse of what one survey says.
… “2.35 million Muslim Americans”……. not osure if this is accurate………
This article above is from Yahoo news so I am going to put another link here that shows the American Muslims Demographic Facts. The link shows 7 million Muslims in the U.S.; 1 million in Canada.

Underwater Warriors is a foundation, which provides a powerful alternative of rehabilitation to our wounded soldiers through SCUBA.
This video takes place off the coast of the serene tropical Island of Cayman Brac. You will see the beauty and continued courage of our wounded heroes as they move forward with confidence and wonder in the freedom they find beneath the sea.
You will also see a sculpture of the mythical world of the sunken city of Atlantis as envisioned by local Cayman Brac artist, “Foots”, which provides a healthy environment for new coral growth and marine life.
You will also see a sunken Russian Frigate, which was exciting to explore with the soldiers. Famed underwater photographer Lawson Wood took all these photos.
” I am so proud to have been chosen to be the spokesperson for the Underwater Warriors Foundation. If you are interested in further information on the Underwater Warriors foundation, please visit “….www.underwaterwarriors.org

Wild Thing’s comment……
Greaty video and wonderful photography.