Leaves on a Tomb

We buried my mother yesterday at Ft. Sam Houston National Cemetery. Mom was a veteran - a WAF (Women in the Air Force) in the time between WWII and the Korean War. She had to leave the service when she became pregnant with her first child (who grew up to be an incredibly wise and good-looking blogger...).

Dad was also a veteran. He started off in the Army (landed at Normandy, wounded at St. Vith during the Battle of the Bulge). When the Air Force became a separate service in 1947 Dad transferred over. That's where he met Mom. The two of them lived happily ever after for 60 years. Dad served 26 years in the military.

My father-in-law joined the Navy after Pearl Harbor. He served as an air operations officer on the USS Block Island (CVE 21), an escort carrier that performed anti-submarine warfare duties while escorting convoys across the Atlantic. He was on board when the ship was torpedoed and sunk on May 29, 1944. Fortunately he survived and went on to father an amazingly intelligent and attractive daughter who had the good sense to marry the afore-mentioned wise and good-looking blogger.

My mother-in-law was a volunteer ambulance driver and USO member in Phoenix AZ during WWII.

I can't match any of their distinguished service records, but I did serve for three years in the U.S. Army during the Viet Nam era.

All of the above is a lengthy build-up to explain why I am so thoroughly disgusted by obama's decision to vacation in Chicago rather than uphold the tradition of American presidents and lay a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington on Memorial Day.

Even more despicable is the left's defense of the turncoat-in-chief. One columnist even went so far as to ask "...does it matter if Obama throws some leaves on a tomb?" (Rebuttal to that column here.)

Well, yes, asshole, it matters a great deal to me, and to people like me who believe that those who have served, those who are currently serving, and those who have paid the ultimate price deserve to be remembered, respected, and honored. If that clown in the Oval Office has the time to welcome a basketball team to the White House, and to give an award to Paul McCartney, then he damn well should have the time to remind himself that while he's hanging out with his homies in Chi-town people are fighting and dying halfway across the world, in a war that he may have inherited, but that he has now made his own.

Inexcusable...