Legions of the War Dead.....

   This is just a brief post because I wanted to quantify the numbers of Americans who have died in our wars.

   There have been dozens and dozens of wars, most of them so small that we tend to forget they ever even happened, but I am including them in the overall tally.

  Here are just the larger conflicts:

The Civil War:  214,938 KIA, approx. 450,000 other causes (disease, heat-stroke, etc.)
                  However, recent research has indicated that the actual overall death-toll was close to 750,000

World War I:   116,516 from all causes

World War II:  405,399 from all causes

Korea:  36,516  from all causes

Vietnam:  58,209  ditto

And the overall tally of all our wars combined comes to:  1,354,664

It is this relatively small percentage of our ongoing total population, now pegged at approx. 330,000,000....to whom we owe our respect, and our undying gratitude.

I have studied war for most of my life, began when I was just a teenager.  I have been drawn to try and understand what it took, for instance, to be one of the infantrymen on a landing craft that was motoring toward a beachhead.  Whether it was Normandy, Anzio, Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Pelilieu, Iwo Jima, Saipan, Okinawa....and so many more I won't list them all....and, know that any moment now the ramp will go down and the enemy will have you zeroed in with both artillery and heavy machine-gun bunkers.  This was an act of immense, even super-human courage.

The troops in every war faced this moment, and had to decide that they were willing to die on that day to accomplish victory over the enemy.  In WWI it was "....going over the top" into the killing fields that were 'No Man's Land'.  In the Civil War it was much the same: stand-up and move towards  almost certain death or maiming.

And, they did this.  Over a million Americans did this: put their lives on the line, and lost them, in order to preserve OUR FREEDOM.  I can never forget what they have done for us, and I am deeply grateful for their willingness to put our country before their own lives.

So, when the Idiot disrespects and defames these people and their sacrifice....he becomes worse than merely being his typical asshole self.  He becomes an odious idiot who wouldn't either be capable or willing to do anything other than try to accumulate more power and wealth.  He's a piece of garbage and I believe it's starting to stink in the White House.  Maybe it's time to take the garbage out, eh.

Saw a sticker the other day:  DUMP TRUMP, flush the turd on Nov. 3rd

Yeah, that's the ticket.