Natalie Ann
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Location: Berkeley
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In Honor of Our Veterans
Veteran's Day
For everyone that fought for their country,
For everyone who fell for their country...
They fought for the hopes, the dreams
The life we all enjoy today.
We must never take them or that life for granted.
Lest we forget.
Thank you, Veterans.
Nena
Be yourself, everyone else is already taken.
.....Oscar Wilde
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Pompano
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Location: Bay of Conception and Up North
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Mood: Optimistic
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..and thank you, Nena, for posting this.
To all veterans....THANK YOU for your service and sacrifice.


[Edited on 11-11-2008 by Pompano]
I do what the voices in my tackle box tell me.
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Barbareno
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Location: Vernon BC
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Takes just a little time to view:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8poZshcDj8g
Barb
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MrBillM
Platinum Nomad
      
Posts: 21656
Registered: 8-20-2003
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Mood: It's a Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah Day
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Hooray for ALL Veterans
Mom, Hot Dogs, Apple Pie and Chevrolet, too.
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Baja-Brit
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Registered: 8-28-2008
Location: London, England & La Paz
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Mood: Happy in Baja!
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Lest we Forget
They shall not grow old
As we that are left grow old
Age shall not weary them nor the years condemn
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We shall remember them.

Wear your Poppy with pride!
As you were.
[Edited on 11-11-2008 by Baja-Brit]
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AcuDoc
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Here is to the fallen and all those that served
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWq7IXTtsoM&feature=relat...
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vgabndo
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Mood: Checking-off my bucket list.
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The One day each year I wear my dog tags...
To all the brothers who served beside me...
SEMPER FI !!
Undoubtedly, there are people who cannot afford to give the anchor of sanity even the slightest tug. Sam Harris
"The situation is far too dire for pessimism."
Bill Kauth
Carl Sagan said, "We are a way for the cosmos to know itself."
PEACE, LOVE AND FISH TACOS
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AcuDoc
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Registered: 9-3-2003
Location: The Seven Seas and Thailand
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Thanks for your service
Aviation Electrician Second Class Petty Officer Pannell
VS-29 S3a Anti-Sub Warfare
CVN 65 USS Enterprise
1972-1976
[Edited on 11-11-2008 by AcuDoc]
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Sharksbaja
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Location: Newport, Mulege B.C.S.
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My deepest appreciation for the sacrafices made by our brave citizens.
Thanks dad, we won't forget.
DON\'T SQUINT! Give yer eyes a break!
Try holding down [control] key and toggle the [+ and -] keys
Viva Mulege!
Nomads\' Sunsets
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losfrailes
Senior Nomad
 
Posts: 577
Registered: 11-16-2004
Location: Ejido San Lucas near Santa Rosalia
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Mood: Good!
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Hooah!
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BajaGringo
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Mood: Let's have a BBQ!
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My regards and deep appreciation to all who have served. May the spirit of their effort inspire younger generations to serve as well...
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Howard
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Posts: 2353
Registered: 11-13-2007
Location: Loreto/Manhattan Beach/Kona
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Mood: I'd rather regret the things I've done than regret the things I haven't done.
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Veterans Day
Hey Vgabndo:
Happy belated birthday! Missed it by one day. Who out there knows what I am talking about?
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BajaNuts
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Posts: 1085
Registered: 5-11-2008
Location: eastern WA, the DRY side
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Mood: no worry, no hurry....it's all good!
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and may all of us pray that the service our younger generations will not be required.
I never actually told Grandpa "thank you" for his service. His ship was the "Arizona". and by a wierd twisp of fate, he was on his only leave of
WWII in Dec 1941. A career Navy man, he died in 1988.
Thanks, Grandpa,....and to every other service person , Thank you from my heart.
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vgabndo
Ultra Nomad
   
Posts: 3461
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Location: Mt. Shasta, CA
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Mood: Checking-off my bucket list.
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Thanks Howard...Nov. 10th. you bet! I have another one on the 29th.! Yeah...Medicare.
Undoubtedly, there are people who cannot afford to give the anchor of sanity even the slightest tug. Sam Harris
"The situation is far too dire for pessimism."
Bill Kauth
Carl Sagan said, "We are a way for the cosmos to know itself."
PEACE, LOVE AND FISH TACOS
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wiltonh
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Posts: 306
Registered: 2-2-2007
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August 1942. Piotrkow, Poland.
The sky was gloomy that morning as we waited anxiously. All the men, women and children of Piotrkow's Jewish ghetto had been herded into a square.
Word had gotten around that we were being moved. My father had only recently died from typhus, which had run rampant through the crowded ghetto. My
greatest fear was that our family would be separated.
"Whatever you do," Isidore, my eldest brother, whispered to me, "don't tell them your age. Say you're sixteen.
"I was tall for a boy of 11, so I could pull it off. That way I might be deemed valuable as a worker.
An SS man approached me, boots clicking against the cobblestones.
He looked me up and down, and then asked my age.
"Sixteen," I said. He directed me to the left, where my three brothers and other healthy young men already stood.
My mother was motioned to the right with the other women, children, sick and elderly people.
I whispered to Isidore, "Why?"
He didn't answer.
I ran to Mama's side and said I wanted to stay with her.
"No, "she said sternly.
"Get away. Don't be a nuisance. Go with your brothers."
She had never spoken so harshly before. But I understood: She was protecting me She loved me so much that, just this once, she pretended not to. It
was the last I ever saw of her.
My brothers and I were transported in a cattle car to Germany.
We arrived at the Buchenwald concentration camp one night weeks later and were led into a crowded barrack. The next day, we were issued uniforms and
identification numbers.
"Don't call me Herman anymore." I said to my brothers. "Call me94983."
I was put to work in the camp's crematorium, loading the dead into a hand-cranked elevator.
I, too, felt dead. Hardened, I had become a number.
Soon, my brothers and I were sent to Schlieben, one of Buchenwald's sub-camps near Berlin.
One morning I thought I heard my mother's voice.. "Son," she said softly but clearly, I am going to send you an
angel." Then I woke up. Just a dream. A beautiful dream.
But in this place there could be no angels. There was only work.
And hunger. And fear.
A couple of days later, I was walking around the camp, around the barracks, near the barbed-wire fence where the guards could not easily see. I was
alone.
On the other side of the fence, I spotted someone: a little girl with light, almost luminous curls. She was half-hidden behind a
birch tree I glanced around to make sure no one saw me. I called to her softly in German "Do you have something to eat?"
She didn't understand.
I inched closer to the fence and repeated the question in Polish. She stepped forward. I was thin and gaunt, with rags wrapped around my feet, but
the girl looked unafraid. In her eyes, I saw life. She pulled an apple from her woolen jacket and threw it over the fence.
I grabbed the fruit and, as I started to run away, I heard her say faintly, "I'll see you tomorrow."
I returned to the same spot by the fence at the same time every day.
She was always there with something for me to eat - a hunk of bread or, better yet, an apple.
We didn't dare speak or linger. To be caught would mean death for us both.
I didn't know anything about her, just a kind farm girl, except that she understood Polish. What was her name? Why was she risking her life for me?
Hope was in such short supply, and this girl on the other side of the fence gave me some, as nourishing in its way as the bread and apples.
Nearly seven months later, my brothers and I were crammed into a coal car and shipped to Theresienstadt camp in Czechoslovakia.
"Don't return," I told the girl that day. "We're leaving.." I turned toward the barracks and didn't look back, didn't even say
good-bye to the little girl whose name I'd never learned, the girl with the apples.
We were in Theresienstadt for three months. The war was winding down and Allied forces were closing in, yet my fate seemed sealed.
On May 10, 1945, I was scheduled to die in the gas chamber at 10:00AM. In the quiet of dawn, I tried to prepare myself. So many times death seemed
ready to claim me, but somehow I'd survived. Now, it was over.
I thought of my parents. At least, I thought, we will be reunited.
But at 8 A.M. there was a commotion. I heard shouts, and saw people running every which way through camp. I caught up with my brothers. Russian
troops had liberated the camp! The gates swung open. Everyone was running, so I did too. Amazingly, all of my brothers had survived;
I'm not sure how. But I knew that the girl with the apples had been the key to my survival.
In a place where evil seemed triumphant, one person's goodness had saved my life, had given me hope in a place where there was none. My mother had
promised to send me an angel, and the angel had come.
Eventually I made my way to England where I was sponsored by a Jewish charity, put up in a hostel with other boys who had survived the Holocaust and
trained in electronics. Then I came to America, where my brother Sam had already moved I served in the U. S. Army during the Korean War, and returned
to New York City after two years.
By August 1957 I'd opened my own electronics repair shop.. I was starting to settle in.
One day, my friend Sid who I knew from England called me.
"I've got a date. She's got a Polish friend. Let's double date."
A blind date? Nah, that wasn't for me.
But Sid kept pestering me, and a few days later we headed up to the Bronx to pick up his date and her friend Roma.
I had to admit, for a blind date this wasn't so bad. Roma was a nurse at a Bronx hospital. She was kind and smart. Beautiful, too, with swirling
brown curls and green, almond-shaped eyes that sparkled with life. The four of us drove out to Coney Island. Roma was easy to talk to, easy to be
with.
Turned out she was wary of blind dates too! We were both just doing our friends a favor. We took a stroll on
the boardwalk, enjoying the salty Atlantic breeze, and then had dinner by the shore. I couldn't remember having a better time.
We piled back into Sid's car, Roma and I sharing the backseat.
As European Jews who had survived the war, we were aware that much had been left unsaid between us. She broached the subject, "Where were you," she
asked softly, "during the war?"
"The camps," I said. The terrible memories still vivid; the irreparable loss. I had tried to forget. But you can never forget.
She nodded. "My family was hiding on a farm in Germany, not far from Berlin," she told me. "My father knew a priest, and he got us Aryan papers."
I imagined how she must have suffered too, fear, a constant companion. And yet here we were both survivors, in a new world.
"There was a camp next to the farm." Roma continued. "I saw a boy there and I would throw him apples every day."
What an amazing coincidence that she had helped some other boy. "What did he look like? I asked.
"He was tall, skinny, and hungry. I must have seen him every day for six months."
My heart was racing. I couldn't believe it. This couldn't be.
"Did he tell you one day not to come back because he was leaving Schlieben?"
Roma looked at me in amazement. "Yes!"
"That was me!"
I was ready to burst with joy and awe, flooded with emotions. I couldn't believe it! My angel.
"I'm not letting you go." I said to Roma. And in the back of the car on that blind date, I proposed to her. I didn't want to wait.
"You're crazy!" she said. But she invited me to meet her parents for Shabbat dinner the following week.
There was so much I looked forward to learning about Roma, but the most important things I always knew: her steadfastness, her goodness. For many
months, in the worst of circumstances, she had come to the fence and given me hope. Now that I'd found her again ,I could never let her go.
That day, she said yes. And I kept my word. After nearly 50 years of marriage, two children and three grandchildren, I have never let her go.
Herman Rosenblat of Miami Beach, Florida
This story is being made into a movie called The Fence.
From Minx:
For those, who like me, probably ‘wondered.’ about the veracity, I did a Snopes check…it is real
www.snoppes.com – best place to check out those doubtful ones before you pass them on
Here’s the link to the local newspaper article
http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/news/atoz/article_10059...
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rogbag
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Posts: 124
Registered: 8-27-2008
Location: Los Barriles, BCS
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Well, sorry I'm a day late & a dollar short.
Saludos to my fellow veterans and all those that have served.
I know that it was a very difficult decision to answer the call rather than travel north to Canada back in 1969. So to you that have served, are
still serving and are thinking about going into the armed services, go get 'em. I have never regretted serving, tho' it sure put a crimp in my social
calendar.
Will see if I can attach a couple of photos. If not, just picture your basic bachelor accomadations, without the pine shelves & cement bricks.
Oh yeah, and without the hot chicks.
[Edited on 11-14-2008 by rogbag]
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