Was Perfection Stolen or can it be Restored? The Saga of Armando Galarraga!

.
Check out the finish of the perfect game from YouTube for yourself.



While the media and social web sites were flooded last night with stories of how unknown Armando Galarraga of Venezuela, a pitcher for Detroit who had never pitched a complete game in his 56 major league appearances, almost tasted baseball immortality with the 21st perfect game in history and was robbed by a wrong call by the umpire.

It is a crying shame that he missed his footnote in history but did he? According to Major League rules the Commissioner of Baseball, Bud Selig, can reverse the call if he sees fit. It is rather odd that the media don't know that obscure fact but it was the last play of the game, since the next batter also was out it made no difference to the stats, scoring or outcome, and the umpire apologized for robbing the player from making history, so I say give him the game and approve the instant replay so no one will ever be robbed again.



Here are various reports on the incident.

In a postgame interview, Armando Galarraga took the high road in defending umpire Jim Joyce. "Nobody's perfect."

Here it is, Bud Selig. Here is your chance to make sure what happened in Detroit on Wednesday night never, ever happens again.

Armando Galarraga was robbed. Stone-cold fleeced. The Detroit Tigers right-hander retired the first 26 Cleveland Indians he faced, and the 27th, Jason Donald, sliced a ground ball wide of first base. Miguel Cabrera fielded it and threw it to a Galarraga, whose foot hit the bag before Donald's did.. It was the 21st perfect game in major league history.

Until Jim Joyce opened his mouth.

Safe,” said the umpire, a 21-year veteran, flailing his arms sideways for emphasis. Of all the umpiring malfeasance in the last year, this was the worst.

History denied by a blown call.

Here is your straw, commish. The camel’s back is broken.

Institute widespread instant replay.

Now.



It should’ve been in place the moment Major League Baseball agreed that technology was sufficient to double-check home run calls. That came in August 2008. In the middle of the season. Selig is not against changing rules on the fly. The slope is already greased.

And this is how he should do it: announce on Thursday morning that he’s putting together a committee of executives, players, MLB officials and union officials to discuss the proper parameters of replay. Weigh, over the next five weeks, the benefits and detriments of different options, like the NFL’s red-flag system that limits teams to two replays per game or a broader option that allows operators in MLB’s central replay office to stop the game to review a call.



Then, at the All-Star Game, announce the new rules and implement them starting in the second half.

It is long overdue. The blown calls in the 2009 playoffs were bad enough. From Phil Cuzzi’s 20/10,000 vision that missed Joe Mauer's shot inside the line during the Division Series to a number of blown calls in Game 2 of the World Series, umpires dished out disappointment with far too much regularity for the most important time of the year.

Still, a postseason replete with embarrassment didn’t compel Selig to change. He defended the game’s human element as if it was some mystical life force that keeps baseball right and fair and just.

Tell that to Armando Galarraga.

He is a 28-year-old from Venezuela. He spent the season’s first five weeks pitching for Detroit’s Triple-A team in Toledo, Ohio. If he isn’t the unlikeliest candidate to achieve baseball immortality, he’s in the picture. Never had he thrown a complete game in any of his previous 56 starts, let alone one approaching perfection.

And yet there he was. Austin Jackson made an amazing over-the-shoulder catch in center field for the first out of the ninth. A groundout to shortstop left him one away, with a rookie at the plate, the perfect formula to flare Galarraga’s senses. He could smell perfection in the air, hear it from the Comerica Park crowd, feel it coursing through his veins, taste its sweetness, see it right in front of him, 60 feet, 6 inches away. It was his..



"I just cost that kid a perfect game," umpire Jim Joyce said. "I thought he beat the throw. I was convinced he beat the throw, until I saw the replay."

It is his.

In the eyes of everyone who saw the replay – television’s, not baseball’s – Galarraga pitched a perfect game. It was a 28-out perfect game, to be specific, as he retired Trevor Crowe for the final out amid the cacophony at the stadium. Fans were mad. They had every right to be.

Joyce stole history.

He feels awful, of course. He should. He screwed up. Even though it wasn’t malicious, intent doesn’t matter. His job is to get the call right. He didn’t do his job.

Replay would’ve. Joyce would’ve been able to laugh it off afterward – saved by something with better eyes than him. He and Galarraga would’ve laughed about it. The perfect game would’ve been legitimate, not something to which baseball fans assign a personal asterisk.

Tigers manager Jim Leyland stood in Joyce’s face after the 28th out and berated him, mimicking the emotions of everyone in the stadium, everyone around the country, everyone who wondered: How dare you? A better question is how dare the commissioner and how dare the umpires’ union and how dare the other Luddites who try to sell the red herring that a few extra minutes here and there aren’t worth it to get the call right every time?



“I don’t know what to say,” Galarraga said.

No one did.

Baseball is stuck with another humiliation. On the day Ken Griffey, Jr. retired, all the sport could talk about was Galarraga and Joyce and the perfect game with the imperfect call. On the same night referees in Game 3 of the Stanley Cup finals used replay to reverse a missed call and gave the Philadelphia Flyers a goal, baseball let its technology rot on something as infrequent as boundary calls on home runs.

The onus returns to the commissioner. If ever there were a time to invoke the best-interests-of-baseball clause, this is it. Selig must swallow whatever romanticism remains regarding the subject of replay and do right by the game.

If Commissioner Selig reverses the call as he should the following will be true.

It will be the fewest pitches (88) in a perfect game since Addie Joss' 74 in 1908

It will be the shortest perfect game (1:44) since Koufax's 1:43 in 1965

It will be the third perfect game in the 2010s, which would have put them one behind the 1990s for most perfect games thrown in a decade — just one year into the new decade.

.

How long can Obama chase Don Quixote's Windmill? A Fool can only fool himself!

.


The more pressure on the president the more he reacts like a trapped rat than the leader of the greatest free nation on Earth. As his sagging personal popularity polls continue to drop down to the level of the polls showing a public dislike for his policies, Obama continues to act like a spoiled aristocrat from the Ivy League blaming everyone but himself for his misfortunes.



It seems no one in the Chicago White House ever got the message that when he was elected it was to serve all the people all the time, not just friends, cronies, campaign contributors and celebrities. Obama lost the hope he supposedly brought to the presidency when he forgot the campaign was over a year and a half ago.

Ever since whenever things have got tough, and he should have known being president was no cakewalk, his modus operandi is to attack the critics, attack the Republicans, attack George Bush, attack the media, and one of these days the Harvard boy Obama will start attacking Yale for giving us 20 years of presidents before Obama came along.



In spite of his ruthless attacks against Sarah Palin for being inexperienced during the campaign, Obama has proven over and over that the greatest myth of his campaign claims was having any experience of his own whatsoever that might help prepare him to be president.

Last night he again attacked the Republicans, then attacked George Bush at length, for all the woes he faces as president. Didn't Obama do his homework when he was a candidate and know what was going on with the government?



If he really was experienced he would have known about our problems because he would have been on the Senate floor voting on the very problems he bemoans today instead of missing Senate votes because he was too busy campaigning.

By the way Mr. President, the last two years Bush was president your very own Democrats controlled the House, which controls the budget, which approved the deficits in the first place.

Last night he also viciously lashed out at those who say government is too big, as if everyone opposed to big government is a right wing Republican. Here his pollsters led him astray. The vast majority of Independents are opposed to big government and deficit spending and even a substantial number of Democrats know we are on a runaway train to oblivion.



Obama seems to be declaring everyone who doesn't want big government should not benefit from the government, a typical Chicago attitude to punish the disloyal while rewarding the insiders. Well Mr. President, it is not your government and not your tax money you are spending like some stoned punk at a frat party.

You have entered the real world and your time is running out to get real. This fall the people of America will give you a good education on politics. The people will bring your endless partisan and divisive political campaigning to a conclusion by stripping what little political strength you have left and taking back control of the Congress. You deserve no less.



At that point you will be a toothless tiger. However, if you continue to act as a picked on member of the elite frat pack and continue to try and manipulate the government to serve your own selfish purposes and agenda you will become the biggest liability of our future.

The majority of Americans who oppose big government and deficit spending have already tired of your politics of excuses and blame, finger pointing and character assassination, and it better end. If not, your performance will become the subject of debate on the national agenda and the new Independent controlled Congress will turn attention on how to limit the powers of a disconnected president to keep him from permanently damaging our Republic.

The future of America is in danger. Not because we face insurmountable problems. Not because we cannot fix our regulatory process. Not because corruption runs too deep. Not because any other nation is a viable national security threat. No, our danger comes from within.

Our government of the people and by the people has been hijacked by your gang of thugs who are trying to bring about radical change in spite of the will of the people. We had a pretty good country before you took over. Now we are becoming the laughing stock of the international community. At home there are no true Americans in your world, only those for and against your radical agenda.

Patriots in America are defenders of freedom and the greatest freedom we have you are trying to steal from us. Big government and deficit spending are the enemies of freedom and the antitheses of the freedoms inherent in the American Republic. You are supposed to be on our side Mr. President. We gave you the chance to serve us.



You want to help you can start with this. Campaign reform, the greatest need and only major issue totally ignored by you since you spent almost a billion dollars to buy the presidency. Public financing with no media ads is the only solution. Anything less is a sea of corruption.

We all want alternative energy but we are not fools. Today conventional energy is our life source. A prudent energy policy will seek out all forms of conventional energy in America to break the dependence on foreign oil. It will also set in motion a long term conversion to alternative energy because to do anything less is economically suicidal.



Real health care reform. So far you have paved the pockets of special interests and health care lobbyists with gold, protected the pharmaceutical and insurance industries ability to steal from the public, assured that health care costs can never go down, and generally made a mess of the health care delivery system.

Now fix it so we are encouraged to get well, not stay sick. If someone is healthy and does not need a doctor give them back the money they paid for health insurance. Stop FDA from accepting bribes from the pharmaceutical companies for the massive cost for New Drug Approval. It is the same conflict of interest that got the SEC in trouble with the banks and Interior Department in trouble with the oil companies.



We have over 2.5 million defense soldiers and civilian employees but only 1.1 million are in the USA. Since about 100,000 are in both Iraq and Afghanistan that leaves 1.2 million DOD employees all over the rest of the world. There are over 735 American military bases outside the USA including 38 large and medium size facilities. At the height of the British Empire in 1898 they had 36 bases spread out around the world and at the height of the Roman Empire in 117 AD they had 37 major bases. Of course they were both trying to conquer the world. We aren't supposed to be conquering the world so get rid of the excess bases.

In financial reform we have fixed everything but the problem, even with the new reform bill. If congress and the president continue to insist housing and derivatives should not be part of the bill then it is a joke. Eliminate unregulated derivatives and stop short selling which contributes nothing to managing the economy but is just a lame excuse for investment houses to steal from the market.

The object of the capitalist markets was to bring about orderly economic development while allowing investors to share in the profits. The result was to make money available to small business to build the economy. If a practice on Wall Street does not serve that purpose then stop it. Right now there is no capital available to small business, no credit from banks, yet all the banks are drawing discounted money from the Federal Reserve. Obama has done nothing but encourage the crooks on Wall Street and we are just as vulnerable as ever.

Our president has more than enough things to do to help and most of those things continue to eat away at the America spirit and budget. After all this time as president, it is clear Obama is not going to get it. We must start preparing to get control of the government back from the political hacks in our nation's capital who are in the pockets of the special interests. Obama is now a part of the problem.

.

Lyme Disease - the Secret Pandemic Sweeping America - Part 4.

.



Treatment with non-western medicine - What is the result?

It has now been three and a half weeks since I was diagnosed with the Lyme disease indicators and about four weeks since the symptoms, late stage, first appeared.

After years of research and monitoring alternative health techniques, when the disease was confirmed I was prepared with a treatment strategy. It was based on a few assumptions I want to review.

I would take no treatment that damaged my immune system.

I would limit treatment to natural products.

I would use three protocols for treatment each of which would help rebuild my immune system.

I would take no antibiotics or pain killer in order to be able to feel the effects.

I would attack both the bacteria and parasites with natural treatment.

I would report the truth on what I experienced to the readers.

Once I was tested using multiple techniques including blood testing and the Lyme markers were confirmed I was already experiencing late stage Lyme symptoms which indicated the disease had been present for some time in my body. As noted in an earlier article, none of the early stage symptoms were present.



In my case I woke up one morning feeling as if I twisted my lower back. By the next morning my arms were completely numb from the elbows through the hands. It felt as if I was frozen in those areas including all fingers. While I had use of my arms and hands, I could feel nothing. Other than the frozen feeling, like frostbite if you are from the Midwest, there were no other nerve conditions like shaking, loss of control, nervous twitch, etc.

In addition the twisted lower back now felt like a severe pinched nerve and when I walked I got vertigo. Also it felt like a severe pinched nerve between my shoulder blades which seemed to be causing the frozen arms. In the next few days my muscles became victim to parasite attack, severe pain in both upper arms, inability to lift my arms above my head, swollen joints throughout my body which seemed to trigger the vertigo, and fatigue after walking short distances.



Mind you I was in excellent shape the week before I got it and had been in excellent shape since 1984 when I suffered a physical injury. Also I had been bitten by ticks many times over the past seven years with no effect and no red rings around the bites. Our Southern Maryland riverfront location is almost like a swamp with high humidity and a warm, wet climate.

As for the treatments I chose, there were a few things I kept in mind. First I knew Lyme disease is the most under-detected disease in existence. Probably 40% of victims have the telltale red rings around a tick bite. Up to 60% of the cases go undetected or are misdiagnosed by western medicine as Lyme can mimic the exact symptoms of numerous major diseases.



Lyme Borreliosis causes, mimics, is manifested as, is misdiagnosed as, or is a contributing factor to more than 300 conditions, such as:

Acute coronary syndrome
Acute Meningitis
Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS)
Alzheimer's Disease
Bell's Palsy
Bipolar Disorder
Brain Tumor
Brown recluse spider bite
Cardiac Disease
Coronary aneurysm
Depression
Epilepsy
Fetal death
Fibromyalgia
Hepatitis
Infectious Mononucleosis
Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis
Lymphoma
Multiple Sclerosis
Peripheral Facial Palsy
Rheumatoid Arthritis
Sudden Infant Death (SIDS)
Tourette's Syndrome
Vertigo

Beyond concerns over these issues I was also aware that new research indicates the Lyme bacteria works in tandem with parasites in your body that are not affected by the standard western treatment of massive doses of antibiotics. For this reason many people will seem to recover from the antibiotics but in time the disease keeps returning often more virulent each time.



I have personally talked to and heard from patients with over 10 years of treatment with antibiotics and no sign the disease will ever go away. Also local support groups have advised me that long term members have died from the failure of the antibiotics to stop the disease. Early research indicates the parasites can actually form cocoons around the Lyme bacteria and protect it from antibiotics.

I adopted a treatment plan calling for three distinct lines of attack. I would start using pure salt vitamin C to attack the parasites. Before the days of purified salt, in which additives such as aluminum, silica and iodine are added to the processed salt, Americans used to eat 4-5 times as much raw salt. Apparently this had a major impact on keeping bacteria and parasites from residing in our systems and causing damage. As health officials told us to cut way back on salt, and the pure salt was replaced with the processed table salt now in use, and more and more vaccinations have been given to us, we have effectively destroyed much of our immune system.



My treatment began taking Celtic sea salt, a pure salt with high mineral content, along with the Vitamin C made with berry extract. I took 5 grams of each four times a day, for a total of 15 grams a day. This is about 4 tablespoons of salt a day and 12 vitamin C capsules of about 1000 mg each. It was split into three daily treatments.

Both of these treatments require far beyond the recommended daily intake but they were necessary to launch an attack against both the bacteria and parasites. The goal is to make the body an unsuitable host for the bacteria and parasites. Substantial quantities of water must be consumed to offset the impact of the salt and keep the liver and digestion system working normally.



After a week of this treatment I added Samento, a unique variety of Cat's Claw from the Peru rainforest that has tested up to 100 times stronger than traditional Cat's Claw. Over the course of several days I built up my intake to 12-15 drops three times a day. There were no problems with the taste and the drops just had to be added to pure water and allowed to sit for a minute before taking.

Samento, so new to America that there is no body of US approved tests, yet so old as it has been used by South American Indians for over 2,000 years, is one of the rainforest wonder drugs that seems to work on almost everything. Samento, in liquid extract form, has foreign clinical trials that show stunning success in treating Lyme disease and many other illnesses mimicked by Lyme.

By the end of my second week now with the dual treatment I noticed that the frozen hands began to change and within a few days three of the fingers on each hand regained all feeling. Now only the thumb and first forefinger are numb.



In my 3rd week of treatment I added the last of my three protocols which was another ancient herb called Dragon's Blood. This was used by the Chinese in ancient China and the Druids in ancient Celtic days and features resins and other extracts. Again slowly building my intake to allow my body to adjust I reached 12 drops per treatment three times a day by the end of the third week.

Dragon's Blood has been co-opted by wizards, magicians, witch doctors and VooDoo practitioners over the centuries but throughout it's long history it has been another of the wonder drugs. I must warn you this is about the worst tasting extract you will ever taste, worse even than the cod liver oil I drank as a kid. Back then the treatment was s ad you wanted to stay well. After trying several ways to take this stuff I finally stumbled on a gem. When I mixed the 12 drops of Dragon Blood with one ounce of root beer it eliminated the nasty taste completely. Guess I should add root beer to my list of wonder drugs.



As I enter my 4th week of treatment my nutritionist advisor is devising a protocol combining the three treatments to allow me to better schedule them during the day and to keep them separate to allow maximum impact on my body. Within days of starting the Dragon's Blood my aching joints started improving and I was able to walk up and down steps normally.

Just today I could do my morning walk with my dog of one mile without feeling vertigo toward the end of the walk. Also I was able to raise my arms above my head for the first time in four weeks without major pain. During the entire time I have tried to exercise my body to keep the muscles as close to being toned as possible although the pain limits the amount of exercise. Still I know it is important to keep exercising, especially the fingers, hands and arms which were numb, to make sure no permanent nerve damage is sustained.

I am now on full dosage of all three treatments and will keep you posted as I continue the road to recovery. It is sometimes painful, but the pain also tells me how the treatment is affecting my body. With the several improvements I have already noticed I am confident something is working to help me and I do feel stronger in terms of fighting off fatigue and exhaustion.



Please let me know what your experiences are concerning Lyme disease or the many diseases it can mimic. You can write to me through the Coltons Point Times or send the info to my direct email at ivyonoak@yahoo.com as I believe there is much new information we can share with the public as we all join forces to fight this most secret of all pandemics.

You can find the first three installments of my Lyme series at the following locations.

Part 1. Lyme Disease - the Secret Pandemic Sweeping America
http://coltonspointtimes.blogspot.com/2010/05/lyme-disease-secret-pandemic-sweeping.html

Part 2. Lyme Disease - the Secret Pandemic Sweeping America
http://coltonspointtimes.blogspot.com/2010/05/lyme-disease-secret-pandemic-sweeping_19.html

Part 3. Lyme Disease - the Secret Pandemic Sweeping America
http://coltonspointtimes.blogspot.com/2010/05/lyme-disease-secret-pandemic-sweeping_20.html

.

White House Takes MSNBC to Woodshed - NBC Now Sings a Different Tune

.


Yesterday, after days of withering criticism from the liberal media led by the Morning Joe Show on MSNBC, the White House had the NBC gang over for a talk. Today MSNBC with NBC anchor Brian Williams as a guest on Morning Joe were singing the praises of Obama and his handling of all the major crises facing him.



Gone were the MSNBC reports on how the Obama Administration was responsible for issuing permits to BP for drilling and for approving all the change requests from BP. Yesterday this lack of oversight by a federal agency under an official appointed by Obama was a major story and the head of the agency had been forced out by Obama.



Now if the Interior Department failed to enforce the regulations or approved changes requested by BP that led to the environmental disaster then who is at fault, the oil company following the regulations or the regulators approving the permits and changes? Certainly both could be at fault.



However, the woodshed treatment by the White House has the entire NBC network singing a different song and telling a different story. Is this censoring the news? What exactly did the White House tell NBC that got them to change the story.

Ironically it was not just the oil mess that got the new kid gloves treatment by NBC. I mean why in the world did the news anchor of NBC News have to go on the Morning Joe show and demonstrate how easily the news media can be manipulated by the Obama gang?



Apparently the Obama boys could not put up with criticism from the left like MSNBC. Additional stories on the Morning Joe program about the Joe Sestak campaign promise of a job, the trouble in Israel, and the leadership, or lack thereof, by the president, all took a different slant after the scolding in the woodshed.



Anchors of two MSNBC opinion shows were also brought in to sing the praises of the president although Chris Matthews did not collapse and kiss the White House ring like Ed Schultz did. Of course hosts Mika Brezeinski and Joe Scarborough did a 180 degree turn and made all kinds of excuses for Obama when it came to his leadership.



Once upon a time Ed Rendell, Governor of Pennsylvania called MSNBC the Obama Television Network. He wasn't kidding. But as the country moved to the center the network seemed to have realized a far left liberal position was destroying their ratings and they moved to the center. Now, after the whupping in the woodshed, they seem to have returned to the president's back pocket.



Such a dramatic reversal by one of the major networks shows little backbone on the part of the network, and a bold and outrageous act by the White House to control the media. It also proves that there is really no fair and balanced coverage by the news media.

As for the new story line at MSNBC, BP is the criminal, they already tried and judged them. As for the Sestak story, MSNBC now says the Admiral is nuts in saying the White House made him an offer. As for the lack of Obama leadership, MSNBC now says he is misunderstood, that he has really been a tiger behind closed doors and that the public doesn't understand him.



It only took one trip to the woodshed to get NBC singing a different tune. Even so called conservative Joe Scarborough has been left exposed as just another presidential mouthpiece. Poor Joe has to work so hard to prove to his liberal colleagues that the Republicans hate him just as much as the Democrats that he has clearly lost his ideological compass.

MSNBC remains firmly planted in last place on the cable news shows and actions like today demonstrate why? The future stock value of GE who owns NBC for the moment and who benefits greatly from the actions of Obama and the Democrats in Congress must be more valuable to MSNBC than the truth.

.

President Obama - What Experience? Whose agenda? Where is the Leadership?

.


The President just can't get break. Everyone in the media has been focused on his detached style of being president and it only seems that even when he tries to act attached he can't get it right. The most recent example was yesterday when he again made a strategic error by being too busy to attend the Memorial Day services at Arlington National Cemetery, sending VP Biden in his place.



He was too busy because he was vacationing in Chicago where reports wee he did almost nothing over Memorial Day weekend except he was going to talk at the Chicago Memorial Day observance. Just when he was preparing to speak the lightning and rain struck with a fury forcing the attendees to race to their buses as the president announced the service was being canceled because of lightning.



His detachment from events Americans hold dear has been obvious since he took office. Perhaps the ultimate insult was when he sent his wife and Joe Biden's wife to throw out the ball at the World Series last year, an honor previously reserved for presidents and most have faithfully attended. The fact it was at Yankees Stadium in the greatest media market of the world made his absence more pronounced.



His fly bys to New Orleans since he took office, allowing 1-2 hours to get caught up with everything going on with Katrina first, more recently the BP oil spill which directly affects four or more states, national tourism and a large chunk of our sea food supply has been repeated three times.



A staged press op is hardly a sign of presidential interest, compassion or empathy for one of the greatest environmental disasters of all time. He was too busy each time to spend more than a couple of hours in the Gulf coast yet twice he jumped back on the plane for multi-million dollar political fund raisers in California. He had a whole bunch of hours available in his busy schedule for those affairs.

It seems the same odd luck undermines the president every time he attempts to take control of the peace process in the Middle East. This weekend, on the eve of the Prime Minister of Israel visiting Obama to once again start the peace process, the Israeli's attacked a convoy of humanitarian aid ships and killed 10 humanitarian workers.



The UN and world were outraged by the action and the trip was canceled. Last time Biden was in Israel and the government announced they were going ahead with building in the contested Arab settlement lands it undermined those efforts to start the peace process.

The frequency with which Israel takes an action contrary to the peace initiatives makes one wonder if they are convinced Obama has no choice but to support whatever Israel does, or they have so little regard for America, the greatest and most consistent defender of Israel in the world, that they think nothing of spitting in the president's eye.



Ironically it seems each of the Israeli blunders came after a visit or phone calls from Rahm Emanuel, Obama's chief of staff and former member of the Israeli army, supposedly to encourage Israel to stop destroying the Obama attempts to get the peace talks back on track.



This reoccurring bout with detachment by our professor president will in the end cause him to lose favor with the American people. We didn't hire him to preach to us or apologize to the world but to stand up for America and fight to overcome our problems. As we continue to wait for it to happen Obama continues to slip slide into oblivion in the polls and will drag the entire Democratic leadership and political establishment with him if he can't change.

.

Scenes from Arlington Cemetery Section 60 - The Saddest Acre in America

.




Arlington National Cemetery, one of our nation’s most important shrines, contains the remains of more than 260,000 brave men and women who have given their lives for their country. They include Presidents and Supreme Court Justices, astronauts and noted historical figures, Medal of Honor recipients and Five Star Officers, along with more than 4,700 unidentified soldiers represented by the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Today Arlington is also the resting place for approximately ten percent of the more than 4,000 soldiers who lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan and who are eligible and selected to be buried there.



Section 60, known as the saddest acre in all of America, is where the soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan who are eligible and choose to be buried at Arlington are laid to rest. Some soldiers request an Arlington burial in their wills; in other cases, the families of the deceased make the request on their loved one's behalf. It’s an active area, filled with photos, letters and personal mementos, but not seen by most of Arlington’s millions of tourists.














.

Memorial Day 2010 - Remember our Defenders

.



Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, given November 19, 1863 on the battlefield near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, USA



Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation: conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war. . .testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated. . . can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war.



We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate. . .we cannot consecrate. . . we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.



It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us. . .that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion. . . that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain. . . that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. . . and that government of the people. . .by the people. . .for the people. . . shall not perish from the earth.