Posted on 05/04/2010 7:20:28 PM PDT by Man50D
A widely regarded Southern symbol of pride and states' rights is standing in the way of would-be Marines in their quest to serve their country – a Confederate battle flag.
Straight out of high school, one 18-year-old Tennessee man was determined to serve his country as a Marine. His friend said he passed the pre-enlistment tests and physical exams and looked forward with excitement to the day he would ship out to boot camp.
But there would be no shouting drill instructors, no rigorous physical training and no action-packed stories for the aspiring Marine to share with his family.
Shortly before he was scheduled to leave Nashville for boot camp, the Marine Corps rejected him.
Now, the young man, who wishes to remain unnamed and declined to be interviewed, has chosen to return to school and is no longer an aspiring Marine.
"I think he just wants to let it go," said former Marine 1st Lt. Gene Andrews, a friend of the man and patriotic Southerner who served in Vietnam from 1968 through 1971. Andrews is a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, a group of male descendents of Confederate soldiers. He counseled the young man when he decided to become a Marine.
"He had been talking to me, and he was all fired up about joining," he told WND. "He asked my opinion of it, and I just tried to tell him the truth, good points and bad points."
When the young recruit didn't go to boot camp, Andrews learned of his rejection based on his tattoo of the Confederate battle flag on his shoulder.
(Excerpt) Read more at wnd.com ...
I look at it as part of this country's heritage and history that should never be re-written, changed or demonized. If you guys want to fly the confederate flag, I have absolutely no problem with that.
“Except for Washington, Lincoln and Reagan are our greatest presidents.”
Sorry, Lincoln’s somewhere between Zero and the bent one.
All good stuff. Man had a war to fight and slaves to free.
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Bombardments of civilian residential areas and “N-words” to forcibly deport.
Sic Semper Tyrannis
I hear ya, Brother!!!
I guess all the Southerners who sported Confederate emblems in World War II were Nazis. Hey, they were wearing the wrong uniforms ,then!(sarcasm). Hey,maybe the Marine Corps did this young man a favor. With the prospect of the military being turned over to the sodomites, its just as well he was turned down. But,its still an insult to patriotic Southerners. Oh,well, it may be that the policy in the future for all the armed forces will be “perverts,yes! Battle flags,no!”
maybe Haley Barbour should bring this up...he doesn't shy from southern stuff like most GOP PC sissies....it's our flag of Miss too
btw...this ain't got nothing to do with Civil War...it's not to offend blacks...let's be honest...like I care...black people somewhere offend me daily...right now Al Sharpton is on his way to Arizona to offend me....I get over it and they and anyone on this forum can too ...this comes down from Bro's administration
and a big ole BUMP!!!!
I think people would do well not to confuse the valor of the reb warrior with the epidemic of Confederate misdeeds and oppressions of the political Confederacy.
“No wonder the GOP and our nation is in such a mess. This has absolutely nothing to do with who attacked whom. This is strictly racial grievance BS and if you think it will stop here as we become more multicultural and more left leaning you better get your head out of your ass. Slavery and ‘racism’ is the battering ram to destroy all that is white and Western in the US. The founders and much of American history up until about 1960 are all fair game particularly since most whites cower in fear over being white and our history. It is only a matter of time before the Marxist fixate on Washington, Jefferson et al just as the Confederacy and Christopher Columbus are now. They have it easy in destroying our nation too because so many whites want to help.”
Excellent comments. And, sad but true.
One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it.
Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully.
The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."
With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.
"Journalist Noah Brooks, an eyewitness to the speech, said that as Lincoln advanced from his seat, "a roar of applause shook the air, and, again and again repeated, finally died away on the outer fringe of the throng, like a sweeping wave upon the shore. Just at that moment the sun, which had been obscured all day, burst forth in its unclouded meridian splendor, and flooded the spectacle with glory and with light." Brooks said Lincoln told him the next day, "Did you notice that sunburst? It made my heart jump."
According to Brooks, the audience received the speech in "profound silence," although some passages provoked cheers and applause. "Looking down into the faces of the people, illuminated by the bright rays of the sun, one could see moist eyes and even tearful faces."
Brooks also observed, "But chiefly memorable in the mind of those who saw that second inauguration must still remain the tall, pathetic, melancholy figure of the man who, then inducted into office in the midst of the glad acclaim of thousands of people, and illumined by the deceptive brilliance of a March sunburst, was already standing in the shadow of death."
“The Union citizens were quite demonstrative, some of them even bringing out flags, which had doubtless been hidden for at least three years. Women swung their bonnets and men hurrahed for the Yankees and the Union, manifesting great delight. One man, who claimed to be ninety-eight years old and to have been a captain in the War of 1812, was almost frantic in his ejaculations when the Old Flag came into sight.”
The victors write the histories.
But then, all victory is fleeting.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibSOuHlSKHE&feature=related
Those means undertaken by Sherman, Grant, Sheridan, Banks, Butler etc on their own former countrymen are applauded today by the very people who today would scream racial profiling or other objections if we guard our borders or fight Islam straight up.
They are hypocrites, this is about racial bitterness for them...nothing else. The rest is just platitudes and canards
What you said...cogent.
Every time a Democrat sees a greenback, it says to him,"I vanquished you." Every time a Republican sees a greenback, it says, "You and I put down the Rebellion and saved the country."
The final tragedy was that Lincoln was murdered by that nut. The men left behind were unable and/or unwilling to bind up the nation’s wounds.
I will have to say that I do have some problems with people flying the Confederate flag. I don’t like the flag flown by those who would pervert what it represents historically. In that same vein, I don’t like those who would take that opportunity to distort history and disparage the people who died fighting for that flag.
Interesting piece by W Thomas Smith from 2006.
An extremely perceptive and articulate acquaintance on another forum has coined the term TWANLOC (Those Who Are No Longer Our Countrymen) to describe these types. They share the same real estate with us, but their words and deeds clearly demonstrate they no longer understand nor value the principles and ideas upon which the Founders established this country.
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