Good afternoon my brothers and sisters!\u00a0 I hope you all had a wonderful July 4th and celebrated our country’s birthday with style!\u00a0 As for me; just hung out with family and friends.\u00a0 I digress; the reason for today’s post is an email my father sent.\u00a0 My father is very careful about sending spam and chain letters; and he only forwards those that I’ll appreciate, like this one\u00a0— I’m sure you all have seen it, it is a common chain letter it reads as follows:<\/p>\n
Subject: Fw: thought about Michael Jackson’s death:
\n{often there is a line here about being written from someone in a combat zone}<\/em> I was just watching the news, and I caught part of a report on Michael Jackson .\u00a0 As we all know,\u00a0 Jackson\u00a0 died the other day.\u00a0 He was an entertainer who performed for decades.\u00a0 He made millions, he spent millions, and he did a lot of things that make him a villain to many people.\u00a0 I understand that his death would affect a lot of people, and I respect those people who mourn his death, but that isn’t the point of my rant. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Why is it that when ONE man dies, the whole of\u00a0 America\u00a0 loses their minds with grief.\u00a0 When a man dies whose only contribution to the country was to\u00a0entertain people, the American people find the need to flock to a memorial in\u00a0 Hollywood, and even Congress sees the need to hold a “moment of silence” for his passing.\u00a0 Am I missing something here?\u00a0 ONE man dies, and all of a sudden he’s a freaking martyr because he entertained us for a few decades?\u00a0 What about all those\u00a0soldiers {marines\/sailors\/airman}\u00a0who have died to give us freedom?\u00a0 All those Soldiers who, knowing that they would be asked to fight in a war, still raised their hands and swore to defend the Constitution and the\u00a0 United States of America.\u00a0 Where is their moment of silence?\u00a0 Where are the people flocking to their graves or memorials and mourning over them because they made the ultimate sacrifice?\u00a0 {Edited for brevity}<\/em> When did this country become so calloused to the sacrifice of good men and women, that they can arbitrarily blow off their deaths, and instead, throw themselves into mourning for a “Pop Icon?” \u00a0\u00a0 I think that if they are going to hold a moment of silence in Congress for Michael Jackson, they need to hold a moment of silence for every service member killed in Iraq\u00a0and\u00a0Afghanistan.\u00a0 {Edited for brevity}<\/em> But, wait, that would take too much time, because there have been so many willing to make that sacrifice.\u00a0 After all, we {in military service}<\/em> will never make millions of dollars.\u00a0 We will never star in movies, or write hit songs that the world will listen too.\u00a0 We only shed our blood, sweat and tears so that people can enjoy what they have. \u00a0\u00a0 Sorry if I have offended, but I needed to say it.\u00a0 Feel free to pass this along if you want. Remember these five words the next time you think of someone who is serving in the military; “So that others may live…”<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\nI thought \u201cSo that others may live<\/strong>\u2026\u201d was a pretty powerful statement, don\u2019t often think that those who serve (and have served) put their own personal freedoms on hold so the general populace of this great land are free to pursue their dreams.\u00a0 It really is a pimple on my ass when we celebrate one individual; when there are heroes living amongst us now.\u00a0 Now for those of you who don’t know me; I am a proud veteran;\u00a0most of my friends are veterans and I think their values as a whole far outweigh the “what’s in for me” values of politicians and other famous non-veterans.\u00a0 Remember that each veteran, no matter the service or his particular job in the service, wrote a check payable with his\/her life to the\u00a0Constitution of the United States.\u00a0 To\u00a0the leaders of this great land, I ask you:\u00a0spend this currency wisely. I’ve used up enough of your time – I hope each and everyone of you enjoys your day; and cherish those that you love.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Good afternoon my brothers and sisters!\u00a0 I hope you all had a wonderful July 4th and celebrated our country’s birthday with style!\u00a0 As for me; just hung out with family and friends.\u00a0 I digress; the reason for today’s post is … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"kt_blocks_editor_width":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rants-raves"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":891,"url":"https:\/\/dansdigitaldive.com\/web\/archives\/891","url_meta":{"origin":81,"position":0},"title":"An experiment in Timesharing: 2013 Timeshare Journey – April","author":"DR D","date":"March 29, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"As you all know; I like to travel, a lot!\u00a0 I was thinking about purchasing an RV when I retire (RV or Timeshare; that is the question), but after having a discussion with my father, thought better of that idea.\u00a0 He proposed the idea that since I like timesharing; why\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Timeshares"","block_context":{"text":"Timeshares","link":"https:\/\/dansdigitaldive.com\/web\/archives\/category\/travel\/timeshare"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2592,"url":"https:\/\/dansdigitaldive.com\/web\/archives\/2592","url_meta":{"origin":81,"position":1},"title":"The circle of life","author":"DR D","date":"November 21, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"This weekend found the boss-lady and I down in Pensacola, FL again. \u00a0This time we traveled south to say goodbye to a good friend. \u00a0Remember Shirley? \u00a0We traveled down here to join her and her family in saying goodbye to their father, a long time friend of the boss-lady and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Life"","block_context":{"text":"Life","link":"https:\/\/dansdigitaldive.com\/web\/archives\/category\/life"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/danielgordis.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/exile5.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":15086,"url":"https:\/\/dansdigitaldive.com\/web\/archives\/15086","url_meta":{"origin":81,"position":2},"title":"Unity, Strength and Fairness… NOT!!!","author":"DR D","date":"February 23, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Mr. Trump has been in office for just over one month, and his stated theme for this presidency is \"Unity, Strength, and Fairness\" (his words, not mine). Holy crap!! that theme didn't even last a week! He hasn't wasted anytime in convincing me that nothing has changed, except this time\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Politics"","block_context":{"text":"Politics","link":"https:\/\/dansdigitaldive.com\/web\/archives\/category\/politics"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dansdigitaldive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dansdigitaldive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dansdigitaldive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dansdigitaldive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dansdigitaldive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dansdigitaldive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":126,"href":"https:\/\/dansdigitaldive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81\/revisions\/126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dansdigitaldive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dansdigitaldive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dansdigitaldive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}