To the Americans

[Khun_Kong]

Happy Memorial Day!!!!

 

Enjoy the long weekend!

 

We earned it and you deserve it!!!

 

From the Best for the Best.... Enjoy!

 

I'm OK with "Americans".

 

But who's the "we" you're talking about?

 

[Flashermac]

Do you say you are a "Californian" or "Arizonan" to a foreignor? Do you really think they know or give two hoots?

 

I remember when a BG asked where I was from and I answered California. Her next question was ... is that in England and did I like David Beckham.

 

 

Then why does TheCorinthian call himself as such? Couldn't he just call himself TheGreek, TheMediterranean, or TheSouthernEuropean?

 

 

Maybe he's from Mississippi.

 

 

[samak]

is US Virgin also hacking your account?

so who said what and actually you just quoted but did not say anything!

[TheCorinthian]

Chill out! I was joking with you. I look at all people who live in the Western hemisphere as Americans. Look at one of the oldest if not oldest map of America and it has the name America printed over the area we call Brazil.

 

I have talked to many Canadians and Mexicans, and many of them look at it as no big deal, but some consider themselves Americans also.

 

It is like using the word United States; are you talking about Mexico, Brazil, or the USA? A few weeks ago I used the word United States and to my surprise, the person I was talking to asked to distinquish which country I was talking about. Shit on me.

 

Saying we are a citizen of the United States of America is a bitch to say but then I generally shorten it to USA citizen.

 

 

No problems BKT!!! Your good. I was just throwing that in there for the others here that might not get you the way most people do!

 

 

I'm OK with "Americans".

 

But who's the "we" you're talking about?

 

 

The "we" is me and my brethren in the US Military. (Oh and I am not Greek or of Greek decent. My screen name is a reference to a member of Greek mythology.

[Bangkoktraveler]

Memorial Day use to be called Celebration Day. People used to wear a red poppy on that day. I guess if you did that today some might look at you a little weird, especially if they knew you were wearing a poppy.

[TheCorinthian]

Memorial Day use to be called Celebration Day. People used to wear a red poppy on that day. I guess if you did that today some might look at you a little weird, especially if they knew you were wearing a poppy.

 

 

I did not know that. If I did it I would tell people I am showing my support for the new #1 cash crop of Afganistan.

 

(sigh)

[Flashermac]

I'm an old fart and it's always been Memorial Day to me. And yes ... veterans bought and wore poppies. My mother belonged to the VFW Auxiliary and used to sell the poppies, as did most VFW wives. They were called 'buddy poppies", since the money raised went to veterans' hospitals to "help a buddy". The poppies started after WWI. On 11 November you will still see Thais selling the identical poppies, with the money going to help disabled vets.

 

 

http://www.usmemorialday.org/

 

 

<< According to Professor David Blight of the Yale University History Department, the first memorial day was observed in 1865 by liberated slaves at the historic race track in Charleston. The site was a former Confederate prison camp as well as a mass grave for Union soldiers who had died while captive. The freed slaves reinterred the dead Union soldiers from the mass grave to individual graves, fenced in the graveyard & built an entry arch declaring it a Union graveyard - a very daring thing to do in the South shortly after North's victory. On May 30, 1886 the freed slaves returned to the graveyard with flowers they'd picked from the countryside & decorated the individual gravesites, thereby creating the 1st Decoration Day. A parade with thousands of freed blacks and Union soldiers was followed by patriotic singing and a picnic.

 

The official birthplace of Memorial Day is Waterloo, New York. The village was credited with being the birthplace because it observed the day on May 5, 1866, and each year thereafter, and because it is likely that the friendship of General John Murray, a distinguished citizen of Waterloo, and General John A. Logan, who led the call for the day to be observed each year and helped spread the event nationwide, was a key factor in its growth.

 

General Logan had been impressed by the way the South honored their dead with a special day and decided the Union needed a similar day. Reportedly, Logan said that it was most fitting; that the ancients, especially the Greeks, had honored their dead, particularly their heroes, by chaplets of laurel and flowers, and that he intended to issue an order designating a day for decorating the grave of every soldier in the land, and if he could he would have made it a holiday. >>

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorial_Day

 

(I've heard other versions, including one about Southern women decorating the graves of the war dead of BOTH sides.)

 

 

[Khun_Kong]

I'm OK with "Americans".

 

But who's the "we" you're talking about?

 

 

The "we" is me and my brethren in the US Military. ...

 

Memorial day is not "rah rah war/fighting/soldiers" day. The purpose is to honor war dead. If you and your brethern are indeed dead, then you have earned it. If by "earned" you mean in some generic way contributing to the spread of democracy around the world and freedom in America, then isn't it somewhat shortsighted of you to discount the contributions of every other American? There are many contributors to the things that make America great, some of whom wear uniforms and many many more who don't. Like all of us, you are just one small cog in the wheel.

[CTO]

11/11/ in Australia we wore poppies too. End of WW1

[Hugh_Hoy]

Memorial Day use to be called Celebration Day. People used to wear a red poppy on that day. I guess if you did that today some might look at you a little weird, especially if they knew you were wearing a poppy.

 

I'm pretty sure it was only called Decoration Day. The red poppies were sold by VFW members and were symbolic of flowers placed on the graves of vets.